Caeli et Inferno: Redux
by Jubalii
Summary: It's been years, and the Hellsing family has once again forgotten its greatest weapons. Now, the darkness that once brought about the end of an era is rising, and with it two beings who have slumbered for far too long. [Rewritten for my, and your, benefit; C.I. by loojiom @ deviantART]
1. The Coup

**Author's Note:** It's me again, Margaret.

Seeing as I've been slowly transitioning my work to Archive of Our Own (find me there under Jubalii, of course), I decided to rewrite the very first Hellsing story I ever wrote. Why, you ask? Chiefly because:

I still like the plot immensely, not only for nostalgic value

it is lacking, and when reading over it I found so many things I could improve upon (I mean, some of the chapters are literally only 3 pages long…. Wow. CA ends up being about 17-20 pages per go.)

A lot of people have asked for a continuation of the 'sequel-prequel', but I can't fix the sequels if this isn't fixed first.

So I'm posting it here too, with a small author's note at the end of my other one to come and check this out. It'll be called… _something_ …until I can get it all fixed, and then it'll go back to being Caeli et Inferno again, I'm sure. Also, to find this over on AO3, it'll be under the original Caeli et Inferno title, since I never posted it there originally. Okay? Okay. This was a long PSA, but I hope that you readers that have stuck with me through the original Caeli et Inferno will also stick through me here, and let us relive a few moments together.

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Caeli et Inferno  
A Hellsing Fanfiction

* * *

 _He walked down the hallway slowly, savoring the adrenaline rushing through his veins. Every creak of the floorboards was another burst of excitement in his system, sending his heart into overdrive at the thought of what was about to take place. After all, he already knew that he had won. There was no contest here! He'd go to Hell, sure, but wasn't Hell where the party was at?_

 _But then again, his mother was insistent that this was an act of mercy, decreed from God on High. So he'd just go to Limbo, burn there a few eons, and then be accepted into the Holy Order with open arms. And wouldn't life after this messy little incident be so much better? No more half-assed garden parties, no more angry mothers breathing fire down his neck, no more wishing and wanting and hating the fact that the unworthy had what they could never have… now they had a chance to get what they deserved. Providence helps those that help themselves; wasn't that the old saying?_

 _The pounding footsteps of his younger cousin echoed through the empty halls of the manor, and he grinned. He could almost taste the boys fear… so_ _ **delicious**_ _._

* * *

Fulton Abraham Hellsing sprinted up the staircase, tripping on the third step from the top and slamming his nose into the upper landing. He clutched his face with a cry, blinking back tears as he forced himself back to his feet and stumbled up the final stairs, one hand on the railing. He looked both ways down the hall before picking his right and running, not even bothering to be quiet any longer.

 _You idiot!_ He scolded himself as he ran, eyes flitting from door to door on the endless hallway as he sought a sanctuary. _An I.Q. of 160, yet you don't have the sense enough to see a family coup brewing right beneath your nose_. He could use the excuse that he was only eight years old; family coups weren't the first topic of thought that often occurred to him. But nevertheless he was neck-deep in one now, and his very life was at stake.

He paused, looking around for something that would help him find his bearings. This was the third floor, one he never frequented. At this point, it would be up to sheer luck if he could find a hiding place good enough that his cousin would give up the chase and retreat until a more opportune time. Melville was dimwitted and probably wouldn't check under every table or behind every curtain, but what he lacked in brains he more than made up for in persistence and brute strength.

He chose a side door, the room within dark and dreary. Most likely it hadn't seen the light of day, or human contact, for many years. He had no idea what rooms his father had used, only knowing the man as a kind-hearted businessman who had died before his time. And his mother, bless her dearly departed soul, was more interested in social status than exploring her own home.

Besides, house was a museum of things that were more or less left to fester in their own antiquated dust, apart from the first floor where the family lived and worked, and the eastern half of the second where they slept— _had_ slept, he reminded himself sadly. If he couldn't find a place to hide, he'd end up just like them, dead in the ground and never sleeping in his bed again.

He ran into the room and locked the door behind him, sinking to his knees for a brief respite before beginning the tumultuous task of pulling himself together long enough to make some sort of escape plan. Looking around him, he saw himself to be in a library. It made sense that there would be a library somewhere on the third floor; after all, weren't there ones on the first and second stories too?

By the looks of things, it was more storage space now than actual library, with many of the shelves empty and others filled with thick old texts too heavy to be of much use as more than a paperweight. The tables were pushed haphazardly around the room, their chairs covered in a fine layer of dust. Along the walls were boxes marked with the names of files and dates indicating that they _should_ have been destroyed ten years prior. The film on the windows was thick enough that only the dimmest light could filter through, and seeing outside was nigh on impossible.

Fulton wiped his nose on his sleeve, only to realize that it had been bleeding from the bump on the staircase. He panicked, wondering if he might have left a spotted trail leading to the door before deciding that a good bit of it had only marred his blue sweater vest. He sniffled and wiped his eyes, upsetting his glasses in the process and having to take an extra moment to resettle them on his nose. Finally he stood, brushing dust off his pants and looking around at the shelves for a weapon of some sorts. The door wouldn't hold if his cousin realized which room he was hiding in….

He looked at the shelves of books, settling on picking out something heavy enough to swing at his would-be assassin, or at the very least lob at as he tried to make an escape. If only he could get past him and down the stairs; then perhaps he could run out the door and find a policeman. But every staircase seemed to have his cousin already standing on it, looking up at him with crazed eyes and laughing that long, slow laugh that made every hair on the back of his neck stand straight up.

 _This one should do the trick_ , he thought, passing furtive glances over his shoulder at the door. The thick tome was on the sixth shelf, just out of reach. He sighed before clambering up the shelves, arm reaching for the book. It was stuck fast in its place, and only heavy tugging would budge it. Finally Fulton grew weary of patient pulling and threw his whole weight off the bookshelf and onto the book. It came out of its place, but the four books on either side of it also flew from the shelf and clattered around him with ominous thuds. He froze, book in hand, a look of terror passing across his infantile face as he turned to face the door. There was no way that his cousin couldn't have heard that—he'd been on Fulton's tail for the past hour and a half.

Somewhere far away, far enough that it was faint, there was that laugh again. Fulton shuddered, knowing that his cousin _had_ heard. It wouldn't be long before he would be up here, looking around for him. He tiptoed back to the door and checked to make sure that it was locked before crawling beneath a table and drawing his knees up to his chest. He looked forlornly at the mess he had created, knowing now why his father had always touted patience as the most important of virtues.

Something caught his eye and he tilted his head, staring at it intently. Most of the books that had fallen had been thick, with creamy pages and hardback covers of green or brown that gave no clue as to what was inside. But one book was a thin notebook, fluttered farther from the bookshelf than the others and lying half open in an imperfect V, its lined pages creasing from contact with the ground and gravity.

He reached for the notebook, grabbing the corner of one page and pulling it under the table towards him. The page tore and he winced, staring at the fragment in his hand. The letters were handwritten, of course, in a thin, flowing script not unlike the calligraphy masters he'd seen once on a business trip with his father. It was now wrinkled from his firm grasp, but the inked letters on the page were still perfectly clear.

 _Excita Volatilia Caeli et Inferno. Salutem exspectat._

Oh, it was Latin? He only had a rudimentary knowledge of the language, thanks to his father's insistent teachings. If it were any other day, he'd have puzzled over the words until he solved the puzzle. But did he really have time to worry over such a thing? Well, it would take his mind off of things for a moment, and it would help him to stay quiet. His cousin hadn't found him _yet_ , and there were many doors to open before he came to this one… unless he left that trail of nose blood, that is.

 _Let's see,_ he thought as he bent over the paper. _Hmm…Salutem…that is savior-no, salvation. Salvation is expected? Expectat…expectat…okay, leave that for later. Let's look at the first part instead._ He scratched his head, chewing on his lip. _Now, even I know that Caeli et Inferno is Heaven and Hell, but Volatilia… volat means to soar. Volati is to say "a thief". The thieves of heaven and hell? Hmm, no, because thieves don't go to heaven. The blank of heaven and-_

 _BANG. BANG. BANG._ He looked up, wide-eyed as his heart skipped a beat. His entire body convulsed once, quickly, and he turned his head to look at the door, bringing the notebook up to clutch it to his chest. His hands trembled, the tiny scrap of paper fluttering. His cousin pounded on the door like Death himself and shouted obscenities no child should hear, he covered his ears against the incessant noise. It was too much; if he had to hear that banging continuously, it would drive him mad!

He looked up at the bookshelf, wondering if he could climb up the shelves and pull more heavy tomes off. His eyes caught a glimmer of something in the side of the empty shelf and he peered closer, hoping against hopes that it was a gun or a knife, or some other metallic weapon that would do some damage. No, it was only a hinge. _A hinge?_ He stood up, placing the notebook on the table and keeping his ears covered as he inspected the shelf. Then, he began pulling more books off until he was able to see a doorknob just behind a smallish book of accounting figures. It wasn't a secret passageway, as he'd first suspected, but it appeared that the shelf had been pushed against a door for whatever reason. Most likely it was to a supply closet, or some unused space that no longer served any purpose.

There was a creak, a crunch, and then a loud splintering as a fist rammed through the door. Fulton jumped with a small shriek as the fist retracted, and then a bloodshot eye peered through the hole that it had made. Fulton stared back, frozen with fear as the eye narrowed, and then the hand pushed back through and began groping in vain for the lock. _I—I have to hurry!_

He began tearing books off the shelf like a madman, trying to ease the weight of the shelf so that he could push it aside. He tried once, twice, but the shelf was too heavy. Standing back and wiping his brow, he glanced again at the hand, which had stopped reaching for the handle and was now slamming onto the door in frustration. The arm above it was covered in deep splinters, but it didn't seem to dissuade its owner from trying. _It isn't working…because I'm going about it all wrong._

A new sense of calm enveloped him as he moved the notebook to another table before climbing up the bookcase and throwing his weight against it. Without the heavy books holding it, it teetered but didn't fall. Two more good rocks had gravity working against it, and Fulton only just managed to keep from being crushed as the heavy wooden structure fell to the floor. His eardrums were wracked with a sharp pain and he grimaced; the sound was loud enough that his cousin also paused in his ministrations, peering through the hole again curiously to see what was going on in there.

There was a good chance that the door led to a closet—even so, it held the hope of more weapons and another barrier between him and certain death. But as he shoved books aside and grabbed the notebook (for what reason, he didn't know, but he felt the need to carry it along all the same), he wasn't worried about what was on the other side of the door. Right now, anything had to be better than where he already was.

He opened the door, forcing it against the bottom of the bookcase, and was faced with a set of narrow stairs. He blinked in surprise, looking up at the darkness above and then back at his cousin, who had widened the hole considerably and was now able to brush his fingers against the handle. He didn't hesitate another moment, heading up the stairs, not bothering to shut the door behind him.

It appeared that the stairs led to an attic. He paused, turning this new information over in his mind. _I wasn't aware that we even had an attic. We have a basement, though, so why not?_ He stepped forward, watching the swirling eddies of dust in the light filtering from a window high above the ceiling. He could see one of the battlements just outside the window, and a slice of blue sky beyond. This too was obscured by film, and what looked like a bird's nest nestled just beneath the windowsill on the outside.

There were more boxes here, even more than were downstairs. These, however, didn't seem to hold files. If their labels were true, than these were weapons and gunpowder, bullet magazines and equipment for polishing and maintaining the weaponry as well. A few boxes were marked with a cryptic message of 'Wild Geese', though if any geese were up here they'd be long dead by now. The thought of mummified goose corpses rotting away in those boxes made him shiver in macabre delight, but he pushed the thought away as he clambered over boxes in search of a gun that might have a few spare bullets in it.

There was something large and bulky covered in a sheet, shoved into the corner between two stacks of crates. He peered curiously at it before grabbing the edge of the sheet and pulling it off in one quick motion. Dust flew into his face and he coughed, nearly dropping the notebook as his lungs protested. When he opened his watery eyes, he started with a gasp. It was… a coffin?! Geese corpses were one thing, but a skeleton in his attic was beyond his measure! He looked warily at the object before the inquisitiveness of his mind won over his better judgment and he stepped closer.

It was light blue, almost the color of the sky. Silver trim ran the length of the wood and in the center, about where the head would lie, there was the small etching of a silver dove, and words beneath it that read in a curving script: _Avis Caeli_. A light shone into his mind and he looked down at the scrap of paper still held tight in his fist.

"Of course," he murmured. "Birds. That Latin phrase was talking about birds. And this, this coffin is the bird of Heaven. But what sort of salvation am I going to get from a coffin?" he asked himself with a sigh. "I guess I could lie in it and hide if there wasn't another occupant…." He gathered his courage and pushed at the lid of the coffin, upsetting it. No decomposed body smell came forth, but he was still too afraid to move it farther. "I can't," he whimpered regretfully. "Not unless I know nothing's in there. Sorry if I disturbed your sleep," he said to the maybe-body in the coffin, too afraid to even look down the crack and see if he could see bones or clothes.

"Don't worry. You can make your apology to them in person soon enough." Fulton gasped again, pivoting on his heel to see his cousin standing in the doorway to the attic. His lanky arm was bloodied, but he paid no mind as he stared at his younger cousin with wild eyes. He waved, wiggling his fingers as his other hand tightened on the handle of his knife. The crucifix around his neck glinted in the pale light of the attic, drawing attention to itself as the teen stepped forwards. "Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat—"

Fulton backed away, feeling the blood rush from his face as he recognized the requiem for the dead. He wasn't Catholic, but his pious aunt had ordered a Catholic priest for his parents' funeral and the same prayer had been said at the gravesite. _I have to get away_ , his mind blabbered, though at the same time he knew there was no further escape. He tripped over the coffin, his ankle pierced by something within. He felt blood run into his sock and grit his teeth, refusing to plead for his life like a little crybaby. He was a Hellsing, after all, and Hellsings didn't cry. Or so his father said; he felt like crying, but at the same time something akin to determination was kindling in his belly. _I don't want to die. I'm going to die, but I don't want to die._

 _Then don't die._ The words, spoken by an ethereal, feminine voice, seemed to echo in the air around him. He thought it was his mind, that he had finally cracked, but his cousin must have heard it too. The teen stopped, turning around to look at the doorway and seeing no one.

"The fuck?!" Melville cursed, before clicking his tongue. "Whatever." He turned back to Fulton, but his eyes moved to the coffin instead and his face became white as a ghost. At the same time, he felt something warm and slick press against his ankle and he jerked his leg back with a shudder. _What was that?!_ A snake, perhaps? But how did a snake get up into a coffin in the attic? And snakes weren't usually slick, but it had felt just like a snake running its body around his entire ankle and catching the blood from where it pooled at his sock.

Before he could say anything, what unmistakably felt like _fingers_ grasped his ankle and threw it to the side. He jumped to his feet, tripping over a floorboard and falling into a box. He curled into a ball as the pain ran through him, a breathless sob escaping before he found himself nose to boot. Dusty boot. Old boot. Boot connected to old pants. Old pants connected to old suit jacket. Old suit jacket connected to very alive woman. Woman with filthy blonde hair. Woman with red eyes. Pretty, but scary. Very scary.

He gulped and the woman honed in on his neck. She looked…hungry. Fulton curled into a tinier ball, tinier than he'd ever made before. The woman arched a brow, looking more amused than hungry now, and he caught the sight of a knife just above her shoulder.

" _H-hey_!" He pointed, knowing all too well that by the time she turned, it'd be too late. "W-watch it!" The knife sliced across the shoulder blade, digging into the bone as blood spurted out in a single arc gracefully. The woman didn't even seem to care, her head turning as she looked oddly at the blade, and then pulled it out without a single utterance of pain. Fulton felt his mouth drop open, unable to believe what he was seeing as the woman turned, looking his cousin up and down.

"You're not my master," she said in an offhanded sort of way, as if she were just now processing the information. Melville paused, also visibly affected by the woman's nonchalance attitude to his attack, though blood still seeped from her wound and splattered on the old floor around them.

"Yeah, so?" He drawled, trying to tug the knife away. The woman's other hand found his wrist and she held it tight enough that he dropped his weapon with a grunt of pain. Fulton heard bones cracking and his cousin's eyes widened, face paling even more than he thought it could, and then began to shout fearfully.

"So?" the woman repeated in the same tone. "So, I'm hungry. And I'm not in a mood to play with my food, so you'll just have to forgive me." She licked her lips and grinned, showing off bloodstained teeth. Suddenly Fulton realized just what had been— _licking_ —the blood from his ankle. Then, faster than he could blink, the woman severed the hand cleanly off the wrist and tipped her head back, drinking the blood like a shot glass of whiskey.

He felt dizzy as he watched his cousin writhing on the ground in agony, clutching at his mutilated limb. He felt nauseous as the woman dropped the pure white hand on the ground and stepped forward. A crate obscured his vision, and he could barely hear the gurgling screams over the sound of the blood rushing in his own ears. Knowing that he probably next didn't help either, and he finally just laid his head on the ground, chin resting on the notebook, and closed his eyes in a gentle sort of faint.

* * *

 **Afterword:** Already it's twice as long as the first chapter. ( _thumbs up_ ) Hopefully my writing style has much improved! Look for more chapters coming up soon!


	2. And It Begins

**Author's Note:** I'm very glad that everyone is excited for this re-edited edition! I'm just as excited as you are, trust me!

* * *

Fulton awoke to a soft crooning in his ear, the voice too low to tell who it belonged to. There was a coolness below his cheek not unlike that of a pillow, and a hand stroking his hair. For a moment, he was with his mother again, and the voice was hers as she sang him a lullaby.

The voice hit a high note in an off-key tone and he cringed, coming back to himself and waking up fully. He cracked one eye, peering through his lashes at the crimson floorboards. He wondered at the color, and at the rancid odor permeating the air, before his mind whirled the memory of what had transpired. His leg muscles ached with the fatigue of running, his nose protesting at the thick stench in the room. And beneath his cheek was the leg of the woman—the _creature_ —that had killed him and inadvertently saved his life.

He pushed himself up, away from the creature, and fell back into an orderly mess of innards and leftover skin. Horrified beyond belief, he pulled his hand back, staring at the sticky mess marring the white skin of his palm. Looking around, he noted that blood covered the floors and walls; in places it looked as though that _thing_ had actually licked the blood off the paneling. He felt his mind protest with shock and terror, overwhelmed with what he saw. He closed his eyes and took three deep breaths, using a method his father taught him to keep calm in times of stress.

He opened his eyes, looking up at the wall again with a calmer air. A shadow formed there; something impossible to do, since the only window was on the same wall as the shadow. The shadow swirled, became corporeal, and took the form of the creature that had come from the coffin. It grinned in its 2D form, the space where its teeth would be opening up to show the bloodstained wall behind. He stared at it a moment, mouth agape, and then did the only thing he could do: he ran.

He didn't stop to think about why he was running; it was easy enough, wasn't it? He wasn't going to let this second chance at life go to waste because he hesitated. And that thing would eat him just as easily as it ate his turncoat of a cousin, so he had no time to spare. He didn't stop to consider how fast the creature-woman had moved when she'd grabbed Melville's wrist, or how the knife did nothing to stop her. If he dwelled on those dark thoughts, he'd end up hopeless, and he couldn't have that when he was trying to escape.

He burst through the attic door, leaping across the pile of books in one go and pausing at the splintered door just long enough to gather himself before scrambling through the Melville sized hole, taking care to keep his hands away from the sharp wood. His hand was still clutching the scrap of paper somehow, though now it was bloody and less legible than before. _Salvation? Hah!_ He thought bitterly as he ran down the third floor stairs. _Fat lot of good your salvation did me,_ he complained to the writer of the words, though he didn't know who could have wrote them in the first place. _My_ _ **salvation**_ _is after me, trying to kill me!_ He let the torn fragment flutter from his grasp, cursing its existence. Maybe he should have just let his cousin kill him after all… at least in his hurry to be rid of him Melville would have made it quick, if not painless. _An eight year old like me shouldn't have to even think such things_ , he lamented as he ran all the way to the first floor without stopping.

He made his way through the foyer, sticking to the walls out of view of the staircase until he arrived at his father's office. He opened the heavy oaken door with some difficulty, closing it again more quietly in an effort to keep this new threat from finding him. He hid beneath the enormous desk, pushing the chair back into place and cowering in a twisted position as he listened for the telltale sound of boots. He tried to calm his breathing, licking his lips as he rested his head against the backboard of the desk.

He didn't understand why the creature hadn't just eaten him while he was unconscious. Instead it had been petting him like a stray kitten, letting him rest and singing soothingly. Why? He couldn't understand it. It had been acting comforting and motherly. _Maybe… maybe it wanted to save me for later? Maybe I'm the midnight snack? Or maybe—_

"Maybe blood is far more delicious when it's full of adrenaline?" A voice chuckled from above, tone both amused and sarcastic. He froze, eyes widening. _How_ —!? He hadn't heard the door open, or even footsteps! How did she get down here so fast? If she had run, he would have heard her. "Will you come out on your own, or shall I drag you out?" the voice continued lightly.

"I—I'll come out on my own," he volunteered when he finally found his voice, that same determination as before filling him again with the will to be brave in the face of death. He pushed the chair back and crawled out from beneath the desk, climbing up into his father's leather seat and turning so that he could face the right way. He was dwarfed by the chair's size, his legs dangling awkwardly off the edge from mid-calf down and his head barely clearing the midsection of the puffed, stuffed leather back. He gulped, placing his hands demurely in his lap and adopting what he hoped was a resigned, undaunted expression.

He shifted beneath the creature's scrutiny. Strangely enough, while she stared at him from her vantage point across the desk, it also felt as though she looked down at him from the ceiling, and up at him from the floor. Eyes bored into him from all sides, taking in his disheveled appearance. He licked his lips and blinked solemnly at her, wondering when she'd take it upon herself to strike a finishing blow. It looked so innocent despite the bloody clothes, standing there in the form of a lady young enough to be an older sister, if his parents had ever had one….

"Of course I take the form of a lady, Sir." The creature arched a brow imperiously. "I _am_ one." Fulton jumped slightly in the chair, wondering if he might have said that aloud. She grinned. "No, you didn't. I'm just reading your mind."

"Y-you can do that?" Fulton asked timidly, though a small part of him was beyond curious at this new information. "You can see anything in my mind?"

"Right now, yes. But only because you have no mental shields up. You'll have to learn how to enable them if you want to keep me out," the creature replied evenly, crossing her arms. "Now, as my new commander, what will you do?" He didn't quite know how to respond, so he removed his glasses and took a moment to remove specks of dust and gore from the lenses with his shirt. He pulled his sweater vest back down over the cotton cloth, replaced his glasses on his nose, and looked back at her.

"You are real, aren't you?" he asked. "I'm not just imagining things because I killed my cousin. I'm not mental, am I?" The creature tilted her head, regarding him silently.

"No, you're not," she finally answered. "And I _am_ real." She grinned savagely. "And you didn't kill that boy. I did. One drop of your blood was more than enough to wake me up. I've been sleeping for such a long time; I was rather peckish, you might say." Her eyes glinted a darker shade of red as she spoke.

"Who are you?" Fulton couldn't wrap his head around everything that he was hearing, but at the same time, he'd gone through enough today that it almost made sense. At the moment, he chalked it up to fatigue and a complete desensitization to his surroundings thanks to trauma. Maybe tomorrow he'd find it all absurd, but right now he was willing to take whatever answer this woman could give.

"My name is Seras Victoria." _What a pretty name_ , Fulton thought absently. "Thank you." He started again and she snorted derisively.

" _What_ are you?" he now asked.

"I am a Draculina," she said proudly, practically boasting in her assertion. He narrowed his eyes, not sure what the term even meant.

"And what is a Draculina, exactly?" She rolled her shoulders in an easy shrug.

"You know what a Draculina is, my master. You only don't want to admit it." He frowned, thinking hard.

"You don't mean—like Dracula, do you? You're a vampire; that's what you're trying to say?" She nodded once. "I guess that means you can't eat steak then, right?" he offered, cracking a smile. "Get it? Stake?"

She didn't return the grin and it slipped from his face. He felt something twitch behind his eye and then stiffened as a pain racked his head from the inside out. He gasped and then groaned, holding his temples with both hands as he rocked side to side, unable to even scream from the immense pressure pushing down on his mind. Her voice echoed loudly in his head. _**This is no laughing matter, little boy.**_ It grew higher pitched and more like his cousin's voice had been. _**Besides, are you not an English gentleman? Is that any way to behave? Hmm? Hmm?!**_

"Sorry! I'm sorry!" he managed to gasp, and immediately the pain lessened, though his eyes still throbbed with the effort of staying in their sockets. He looked up at her, blinking back tears as he marveled with fear and awe. She had caused him torrential agony without even touching him! What sort of creature was this? Was this really a vampire?

"Remember that, Sir." He swallowed hard and a tremble worked its way through his body. "My punishments are quick and merciless, but hopefully you aren't a complete nitwit. I have no doubt you'll learn quickly what it means to have a vampire as your servant." She smiled now, her fangs glinting wetly. "Now, I've been stuck in that coffin nigh on a century; I think I deserve a hot bath, and you deserve a long nap. I trust you can find your own bed?" He nodded silently. "Good. Sleep well then." With that, she turned and actually _sank through_ the tiled floor.

 _Well, that's how she gets around, I suppose._ He sat at the desk another moment or two, looking around at nothing in particular before getting up and obeying. He didn't want her to punish him for not being quick on the mark, and from the state of things she'd be the person to do something so outlandish.


	3. Conversations with Vampires

**Author's Note:** I'm glad that I've gotten such good reviews on how everyone enjoys this revised story! It makes my day every time I read them.

* * *

Perhaps running all day yesterday had tired him out, or perhaps his poor mind was too overwhelmed to bother him with nightmares, or _perhaps_ that woman, that _Seras_ , had done something in his mind to block bad dreams; whatever the case, Fulton woke up from a restful, dreamless slumber feeling completely refreshed. He blinked at the ceiling, feeling comfy and warm in his thick flannel jams and the warm blankets tucked neatly around his thin frame.

A part of him wanted to believe that the whole ordeal was nothing more than a long, drawn out nightmare that was more vivid than any other, but as he turned his head he noticed the old notebook had been placed neatly on his nightstand. On top of it was two pieces of paper and then his glasses, folded neatly and serving as a makeshift paperweight. He stared for a long moment at the blurred sight before sitting up in bed, shoving his glasses on his nose and grabbing the two papers. One was the bloodstained fragment; it seemed as though someone had taken the time to smooth out a few of the crumples, though the dark splotches remained untouched. The other was a letter, written in a cramped, but neat, hand.

 _Dear Sir:_

 _Presumably it is daytime as you're reading this, which means that I've already turned in. I've taken the liberty of moving all my things back into my old room in the basement. All the boxes that were in my room are now in the hall. We can discuss what's to be done with them when I wake up. We'll also discuss how to get this place back up in order, but I think I can handle a good deal of it. I hope your day is pleasant._

 _-Seras V._

 _P.S.: Don't try running away again. I'd hate to have to chase you down at nightfall. Also, now that I think about it, why don't you read some of that journal? I'd rather not have to explain it all, and you'll be more prepared for the days to come._

 _-S.V._

The idea to run hadn't occurred to him, but now he considered it. This was his house, so why should he run? And besides, if Seras had wanted to eat him, she had had more than enough opportunities to do so by now. He could consider himself—for the moment at least—safe. For a while, he stayed in bed and tried to sleep some more, but he became incredibly hungry and needed to relieve himself, so he eventually rose.

He cleaned himself, dressed himself, brushed his teeth, and then wandered down to the kitchens. A real lunch was out of the question, but he managed to make himself a sandwich and, after cleaning up the mess, he ate it silently at a table in the large, empty mess hall. For some reason, his father had laid off the mercenaries; the rest of the staff had been fired after the death of his parents. There was no one in the house other than himself, and the vampire sleeping in the basement. He wasn't sure how to feel about this, so he ignored it for the time being and finished his sandwich, washing it down with some milk that was two days over the expiration date, but hadn't soured.

Afterwards he was at a loss as for what to do, so he went back to his bedroom and made his bed. He sat on the neat sheets, thinking about Seras. She had been able to peer inside his mind, hadn't she? What if—what if he could do the same thing? He'd sort of _felt_ her in his mind as he spoke last night… he closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to recreate the strange feeling. It gave him a headache, but at the same time he felt as though he were getting closer.

 _T-there!_ A small tug in the back of his mind; that was _her_. In his imagination, he could see the edge of a rope floating in the blackness of a brain. He grasped the rope and pulled with all his might, widening the hole in which it came from. Then his mind was abuzz with slow, even waves that lapped through his consciousness with a lazy precision. _Sleep waves_ , he thought absently. At some point in his extensive reading, he'd also read on sleep, but he couldn't remember much beyond the Deltas and Alphas.

For another long while he merely sat on his bed with his eyes screwed shut, feeling the evenness of the waves, stunted occasionally by a small bump as the mind switched gears and fell in and out of deep sleep. He marveled at them with all the infantile wonder of his eight years, and then all at once he grew bored with just watching. Maybe if he followed the waves, he could see into _her_ mind? His mind had no corporeal body in his imagination, but all the same he stuck his 'hand' through the hole that led from his mind to hers, pushing through and trying to fit his whole 'body' inside.

It gave to a certain point, and then he came to an impasse. Confused, he pushed hard against it, but it gave about as much as a steel-reinforced door. He batted his imaginary hands against it, mind beating for all it was worth, but the impenetrable wall remained and kept him from the Draculina's mind. Clicking his tongue in exasperation, he gave up for the moment and instead pushed his feet against the wall like a springboard, using the propulsion to guide himself back through the hole and into his own mind once more. He slumped against the sheets, a fine sheen of sweat glimmering on his forehead though he'd not moved once during the entire session.

 _What do you want?_ The hard feminine tone was sleepy and irritated, most likely at being woken up midday. He frowned at it, but he was only a child and she was a grown-up, so he couldn't chastise her for such a mean voice.

 _Sorry. I was just looking at the link between us_ , he explained, not sure how to best word it. There was a pause, and yet her mind buzzed with quick, rapid activity—thinking?—before she spoke again.

 _As long as you don't need me,_ she finally answered brusquely. _Good day, Sir._ _ **Try**_ _not to wake me again._

 _Yes, I will. Won't. Will try, won't wake you_ , he stammered mentally, blushing. There was a click in his mind, as though she'd shut some sort of door, and then he was alone again.

* * *

He spent the day about as productively as an eight-year-old could be. He went to the playroom and built a small fortress for his soldiers out of Jenga blocks and an old shoebox, he slid down the banisters and raced around the foyer when he felt a burst of energy, he spent a good hour staring out the window at a pair of birds on their nest in the hedge below the sill, and he wandered down to the basement stairs.

Getting on his hands and knees, he pressed his cheek to the floor and could just see the edge of the boxes that Seras had spoken of in her note. He wanted to go down and rifle through the contents, but doing so might wake her and he'd given his word that he'd _try_ to stay quiet. Giving up on getting more than a glimpse, he shrugged and wandered back to the kitchens.

He finally sat down to read the notebook in his father's office, a carton of ice cream he'd found in one of the freezers nestled between his legs. He ate the raspberry crème ice cream with relish, licking the spoon as he carefully wiped his hands on a napkin and turned over the first page of the notebook. It appeared that this was a journal of his ancestors, and he was surprised to find the first entry to be filled with a girl's handwriting.

"The Daily Record of One Sir Integral Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing, leader of the Hellsing Organization". Her writing was even and calm, even if the things she was writing about weren't. He found it an interesting read, and just from the first few pages alone learned quite a few things.

One: his ancestor Integra was twelve when she began writing in the journal, but even at that young age she was a no-nonsense type of girl. She wrote only what needed to be written, and while her writing was first-rate, it meant she often left things out. Fulton supposed that she assumed the next person reading the journal would have _some_ notion of what she meant, and therefore didn't spend time going over particulars.

Two: Rather than dealing in mercenaries and keeping troop records for the crown, the Hellsing Organization of old dealt with taking out supernatural creatures that posed a threat to humans. Along with an elite army, they also had a vampire that Integra referred to in her writing as 'A'.

Three: this 'A' wasn't a very nice vampire. He was rude, loud, liked to shoot things, went where he didn't belong, played cruel tricks on Walter—who he assumed had to be a butler or staff of some sort—and kept Integra at her wit's end trying to keep him under control.

At 6:00 he felt Seras wake up and then felt a surge of something that ran along his skin and raised the hair on his neck. It felt powerful, so he decided it must have been Seras herself. He tried her mind again, but could find her. Perhaps she didn't want to be found. He went back to his reading, the empty carton of ice cream on the floor at his dangling feet as he rested his head on one arm.

It seemed that there was some sort of symbols on 'A's gloves that prevented him from doing too many bad things. Integra could control him through the gloves, though in the journal she wrote of how hard it was to learn exactly how. Apparently, it had a lot to do with saying things in such a way that 'A' couldn't find a loophole and go on a bloody rampage. It sounded more like a fairytale than real life, but at this point he was more than happy to go along with anything the journal threw at him.

The plot skipped a few months when Integra was in her twenties, and then picked back up again, this time with Seras thrown into the mix. 'A' had brought Seras home one night from a mission, and Integra hadn't been very happy at the sight of the unconscious girl. There'd been fighting, and shooting, but 'A' had been steadfast for once and refused to kill her, or take her away. So Integra had eventually conceded and let Seras stay.

Fulton paused, scratching his head as he read over a few more passages. He didn't really understand how this Seras in the book and the Seras he had met yesterday could be the same person. The Seras in the book was a bit loud, but gentle and cheerful, and a kindhearted soul to boot. She cried when 'A' got mad at her, offered to help Walter, and seemed wary of Integra herself. How had such a change come about? Did Seras suffer a fall and hit her head? Or did something else happen to cause a complete mood change? He felt Seras' mind open up to him and he marked his place in the journal, hands folded on top as he waited for her to show up. The best thing to do would be to just ask her.

This time she came not in or out of the floor, but through the door like any normal person might. Perhaps she worried about his mental health? In any case, she looked a thousand times better off than she did the night before. Fulton couldn't tell if it was the bath, or maybe her…food… (he dared not think the real term), but she looked much better. Her eyes weren't so sunken, her cheeks rounded a little more and with a faint hue. Her skin was as pale as before, but now it seemed to have some more elasticity. Her scarlet eyes held some vivaciousness now, and even her hair was bouncier and had a bright, if not healthy, sheen.

Even her dress was more befitting. She wore a fitted suit, sapphire with dark navy pinstripes that ran the length of the suit jacket and pants. Her shoes were actually black boots, polished until her reflection shone back up at her. Her blouse was white, and a navy tie the exact color of her pinstripes was tucked neatly into the jacket. On one lapel was a tiny pin in the shape of a dove, and just beneath it another pin with the Hellsing crest—that, it seemed, had changed little over the decades.

She had a blue fedora perched on her head; a black and a white feather had been stuck into the hatband and were being held there with a little red pin. On her nose sat a pair of strange glasses; they were so small and round that she could easily look over them if she so chose. The sides resembled welding goggles, and the lenses were a murky grayish-blue instead of being clear. When she looked directly at him through them, they turned the bright red of her eyes to an off-brown color.

As bizarre and outdated an outfit as it was, it seemed to suit her perfectly. Fulton was actually impressed with the sharp wardrobe, and kept his eyes on her as she sat down in a chair opposite him and the desk. She pulled off the hat and glasses, placing them on the edge of his desk and leaning back in the seat, adjusting one white glove pretentiously. When her glove was to her liking, her eyes swiveled to him and she looked him over before gracing him with a surprisingly sweet smile. It put him on guard, as he still wasn't sure how to take such a changeable attitude.

"Hello, Miss Victoria," he said politely, breaking the silence. "I—I trust you slept well, despite me?" One slender blonde eyebrow rose, but she didn't rebuke him for his interruption earlier.

"I slept just fine," she replied, her voice a smooth purr. "And you will call me Seras. I've never had a Hellsing call me Miss Victoria, and I don't plan on starting it now." She eyed him a moment more. "About those boxes…"

"Oh, right." Fulton chewed his lip. "I really don't know where to put them, unless you just want them in the attic? I… I don't know how my father used to do things," he added quietly, feeling almost guilty at his lack of knowledge.

"What happened to your parents anyway, kid?" She seemed to catch herself. "Sir." He blinked; she kept calling him Sir, though he really wasn't any sort of nobility. The Hellsings were old blood, to be sure, but his father hadn't been a 'sir', and he didn't see why he had to be. But it wasn't anything worth arguing over.

"There was an accident. I don't really know what happened. My aunt just said there was an accident." He hadn't been allowed to see the bodies until they were in the casket, and even then he'd only been lifted high enough to see their faces and kiss them one last time.

"And where's your aunt?" Fulton started.

"M-my aunt doesn't like me. It was her son that you—" Seras waved his words away impatiently.

"I know that, I know that. I got as much from his blood," she huffed. "I want to know _where_ she is. It might be worth paying a little visit. After all, accidents are hardly ever what they seem, are they?" she chuckled, the light from the large picture windows glinting off her unusually sharp teeth.

"I don't know," he half-whimpered. "I just don't know." Her grin faltered and she tsked, shaking her head.

"Pfft. You're a bit of a crybaby, aren't you?" she asked, but he could tell the question was rhetorical. "I'll have to toughen you up a bit." He shivered at the implication of her words, but didn't say anything. "Now, what do you think of that journal?"

"It's really interesting," he said amiably, internally grateful that she'd turned the topic away from darker matters. "I mean, this Integra seems interesting, at least. But who's 'A'?"

" 'A' is…completely and utterly none of your business." She picked at a nail through her glove. "For now, at least."

"But where's he at now?" Seras turned her head to him, her gaze icy and hard now.

"He's _none of your business_ ," she reiterated. "Not until you're older, and you've read the entire book and completely understand its meanings." Fulton wilted.

"I doubt I can ever understand _everything_ about the book," he complained. Seras rolled her eyes.

"Well then, you'll never learn about him, will you?" she snapped. She tossed her legs up over the arm of the chair, crossing them. "Now, enough crying over that. We've got to get busy. Get an army, get some staff, get orders of blood coming in, take inventory of food and weapons, get some missions rolling…." She counted off on her fingers, trailing into silence before turning to him. "You get all that?"

"No." He stared blankly, feeling stupid. "Why do we need blood? Or an army? Or staff? Can't you just take care of me?"

"I'm not your damn babysitter, ki—Sir." She sighed and shook her head. "I need blood to eat. Vampire, remember? I like bagged blood; you don't have to deal with souls that way. We need an army because we're Hellsing, and we need staff to take care of this place, the army, and you." Her smile became livid and violent. "You'll be the one to raise the Hellsing empire back to its former glory."

"B-but I don't know anything about raising empires!" he protested. "I'm only eight!" She leaned over the desk and he smelled the irony tang of blood on her breath; it turned his stomach.

"No excuses," she sneered. "Not when I'm around. Think of me as an… _older sister_ of sorts. I'm here to bully you into becoming more than what you are." Fulton leaned away from her as she ruffled his hair, a look of despondency written across his face. _I don't think I want to become your idea of something more, to be honest._

 _Too bad,_ she replied mentally, hearing his thoughts. _It's not like you really have a choice._

* * *

The next morning, Fulton awoke to a flurry of activity. He ran down the stairs in his jams, wondering what on earth could be making so much noise at seven in the morning. When he got there, he saw men and women running to and fro. It reminded him of a louder version of his father's business, and somehow the sight set his mind at ease. He stood on the lowest step, watching while staying out of the way.

"Ah, you must be Master Fulton?" He turned, holding onto the railing as he saw a young man making his way over. The man was tall and thin, but broad-shouldered. He wore a neat white shirt and black pants with a white apron, his long brown hair tied in a loose ponytail. He made a theatrical bow when he reached the stairs. "I am Winston; Miss Victoria hired me to be the butler for this house." His voice was soft and warm.

"Oh. How do you do?" Fulton stuck out his hand. The man smiled good-naturedly, coming far enough out of the bow to shake it. "Are you the one that's going to be taking care of me, and feeding me?"

"Are you hungry?" the man asked, head tilting. Fulton nodded, his stomach growling as if it wanted to agree as well. "Alright then, come along into the kitchen and I'll see what I can whip up. It's been a while since I cooked, but a chef hasn't been hired yet and I don't see one coming in today, at the very least." Fulton trailed after him, watching the men in suits coming in and out of the house until they turned a corner and the front door was no longer visible.

"Where's Seras?"

"Oh, she's around here somewhere," Winston hummed thoughtfully as he ushered Fulton into the kitchen ahead of him. "I wouldn't bother her right now, though. She's the type of person that will come to _you_."

"I've already figured that out, I think" Fulton muttered as he was seated at the counter. Winston found a frying pan and set to work on some bacon and eggs, both of which came from a newly stocked fridge. Fulton watched him sleepily, hearing the hustle and bustle outside the door. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that a new leaf was turning over for him. _Maybe I should keep a journal, too._


	4. An Enemy Appears(?)

Seras was a mystery that Fulton could never really solve.

After a year or two, he figured out that she was one of those things you simply weren't meant to understand, and it was much easier to just learn how to keep on her good side. She had moods that swung from one extreme to the other depending on how he acted, and it didn't take too long for him to comprehend exactly how to speak or act in order to keep her in a benevolent mood. Of course, he also knew that she was probably playing him like a fiddle in order to manipulate his actions, but it was just better for everyone if they ignored that fact and kept to the status quo.

He was always particularly interested in the markings on her hands. She was hardly ever in a mood to show them to him, even on days where she was cheerful. The markings were not something she was comfortable with. But there _were_ days where he managed to wheedle in just the right way so that she, somewhat begrudgingly, let him stare openly at her gloves. He traced the marks with his finger, and one time, when he actually thought to take a picture of them for further study. To his surprise, Seras didn't know much about them. Whenever he asked what the markings stood for, or what they did, she would shrug with the benign indifference that seemed to be her trademark.

"They're there to keep me in line, and that's all I was ever told," she said nonchalantly. "After all, I'd already known about them since I'd seen them on—" Here she stopped, biting her lip for a moment and to his astonishment, the black runes glowed a dull scarlet that was nearly the same shade as her eyes. He could even feel _heat_ on the back of his palm where it sat near hers. "Never mind. I just knew they weren't anything harmful. I never wanted them, though," she added, somewhat bitterly.

"Then why—?" One cold glance had him silent again.

"It's none of your business _why_."

* * *

"Stand _still,_ young master!" Winston tcched and arched a brow, flicking the wheel of the digital camera with his fingernail as he changed the settings. "If you'd just be a little patient, I'd have this finished by now." _Stand up straight_ , a shadowy feminine voice agreed, and the twelve-year-old heir of Hellsing felt sharp nails biting into his shoulder through the stiff material of his new summer suit.

Fulton swallowed a sigh and obligingly rolled back his shoulders, putting himself at his full height. Even though he hadn't reached puberty yet, he was already eye to eye with Seras and was gaining fast on Winston's willowy frame. He discreetly wiped the sweat pooling on the bridge of his nose while Winston reset the camera, adjusting his glasses. Despite it being midmorning, the air already shimmered with heat and he felt the sun beating down on his back. Seras stood off to the side, the large trunk of a tree shading her from the harmful rays and the leafy branches overhead providing extra relief.

He wasn't even sure _why_ Seras wanted him to take these stupid pictures; it certainly wasn't his idea of how to spend a morning. Well, this entire summer gala wasn't his ideal event, but Seras insisted on those as well. _Got to be in well with the other families,_ she always said, the edge of her mouth curling up in a sneer that suggested she was amused at this complete lack of decorum. He simply didn't _care_ about the other Knights and their families, and they certainly didn't care about him and his.

Most of them were against having the Hellsing Organization return 'to its roots', but one strong glare from Seras had them diverting the matter to the government at once. Most of the time such motions would take years, but Seras must have done something there as well, for within two months the entire operation was up and running at full capacity. From then on, they appeared at social conventions and on the odd occasion that the royal family called a meeting, but otherwise left Fulton to his own devices. Fulton didn't meddle in their affairs either—or, more than necessary, to be technical—and the entire shaky chain of command remained in an unreliable status quo.

"Come on then!" Fulton finally snapped, feeling another bead of sweat run down his spine and settle at the hem of his trousers. Winston clicked his tongue again, but held up the camera and peered down at the display.

"Miss Seras, would you please tilt your hat up? No one will be able to see your face," the butler said genially, motioning with his hand. Seras chuckled softly and instead tilted her head a bit higher in compensation for the fedora. Winston squinted one eye and lifted the camera higher, stepping around until all was centered. "Alright, everyone stay still, smile, and—" He pressed the button and Fulton heard a beep, giving him a split-second warning before he was blinded by the flash. Seras blinked calmly while rubbed his eyes, cursing under his breath.

"Very nice," Winston remarked, looking at the display again. "That's one for a frame instead of the books," he added. "Want to see?" Fulton shook his head, but Seras stepped over and peered down at the display. Seemingly satisfied, she nodded and then vanished, presumably back down to her basement hideaway. She'd stay down there during the gala, but she wouldn't sleep until the gala was over.

"It's hard to wake a vampire back up once she's in bed for the day," she'd explained once, when he'd asked. "I'd rather just stay awake and sleep in once I know that you'll be alright."

It's not as though he was completely unprotected while she stayed below surface, in any case. Winston, while being a master of hors d'oeuvres and excellent multitasker, was also a sharpshooter that could wield anything from a simple handgun to one of Seras's more… _exotic_ weapons. His weapon of choice before coming to serve at Hellsing was a sniper rifle, though now that he spent most of his time near his master he became more reliant on his favorite pistol, sticking even now from the holster right above his apron.

Of course, if Fulton found himself facing certain death, which for some reason always seemed to happen when he decided to leave the manor's property and go out into London, then Seras was ultimately the way to go. She was the strongest creature he'd ever seen—it always seemed that she was nearly omnipotent, the way she sliced through enemies that would otherwise be bad news for humans. He could almost imagine her yawning as she cut apart would-be vampires with one hand, blood spraying everywhere and painting her blonde hair a sickly shade of off-pink.

And if the rumors were true, then Seras _wasn't_ the most powerful vampire there was! Always in the shadows of the family journal, or Seras's stories, was the enigmatic 'Bird of Hermes', a devastating vampire that could easily overthrow humanity if he sought to. Such a creature was horrifying to even imagine, but he actually existed! He just… wasn't around. Seras wouldn't divulge the secrets, and the journal gave no clues to the vampire's whereabouts, no matter how many sleepless nights the insomniac-prone heir pored over its contents.

Just to have Seras under his thumb (theoretically) gave him a rush of power; he was the owner of a destructive force of nature. It was like having the power of wind and rain at your beck and call, and he had to be careful not to get an inflated ego; to do so would mean getting in over his head, and probably _losing_ his head. Even so, he could only imagine the unstoppable power of the organization with the mysterious 'A' under his control. It gave him pause, as well as a new respect for his ancestors.

The journal, while informative and helpful in many aspects, was highly vague in others. For one thing, the writers had obviously expected him to know more about the history of the organization than he did. This wasn't his fault; since he'd found Seras he had scoured all the libraries, storerooms, and even the filing cabinet in the staffing office for any sort of information on Hellsing. There was _nothing_ , other than the journal itself. It was as if someone had tried to wipe all the information about the Hellsing Organization from the face of the earth. And with it had gone any information he might have been able to dig up about this 'A' character.

Often he speculated on what might have happened, but he could never come up with an answer. Where was he? Why was he hiding? Why did he not take Seras with him when he left? These questions kept Fulton up at night, lying in his bed and staring at the ceiling as he hoped for an epiphany that would bring the solution. He just didn't understand. If only he had more information! He cursed whatever ancestor decided to just throw Hellsing's history to the wind and become a governmental mercenary supplication.

In his years of growth with Seras watching over his studies, he'd found a healthy appreciation for his organization's past. It was really a shame that most of it was gone, but Seras had assured him that he was well on the way to bringing the 'empire' back to its former glory. He found himself quite suited for his career, and while he hated conferences and monthly budget reports, he truly enjoyed the sounds of a lively household. Men shooting in the night didn't bother his sleep, and he was able to map out missions and plan attacks with the same zeal he showed in his chess matches.

He was shaken out of his thoughts by the young Miss Walsh, who had traipsed up with a spoonful of gelato in her mouth. The only child of the current Sir Walsh, this eight-year-old was a strange concoction of perfect poise and bratty annoyance, as well as the bane of Fulton's existence. From the time they met, she found every reason in the world to make his life miserable in small ways: untying his bootlaces when he was sitting in on a meeting, looping his suit jacket around a doorknob when he paused in the hall, or lying in wait with a water balloon for him to walk beneath her balcony. Today, however, with her parents on high alert for her mischievous behavior, she seemed inclined to be genial.

"Good afternoon, Sir Hellsing," she drawled, popping the spoon out of her mouth and bending in a curtsey. Her dress was more lace than anything else, with thick taffeta ruffles in a sickly pea green color gathered around her waist. "You couldn't have had this gala inside?" He noted with some malignant satisfaction that she seemed just as uncomfortable as he was, her doughy cheeks pink with heat and sweat glimmering at her temples.

"It's a garden party," he snapped, arching a brow at her irritably. "The point is that you have it outdoors, in the garden." She huffed, rolling her eyes.

"Well you should have had a ballroom party instead. If my curls get too hot, they'll frizz and it'll be all your fault." She tossed said curls, the pale strands bouncing around her face in overdone ringlets. "Where's Seras?" As much as she despised the master, she had a strange fascination with the servant.

"She's inside, in the bed. The sun makes her ill," Fulton replied absently, looking around for someone to pass the child off on. He was already suffering under this unbearable heat; he didn't need to have to listen to Miss Walsh's never-ending prattle too. As far as he knew, no one had ever informed the girl that her idol was no longer human, and he was always careful to keep his talk of Seras relatively neutral, despite her prying queries.

"Oh," she sighed dejectedly, looking around. "It's boring here," she announced at once. "You should at least have a—oh, who are those two?" she asked with renewed excitement, pointing past Fulton's shoulder and bouncing on her heels. "Can you introduce me?" Fulton twisted around to see a pair of twins standing side by side, drinks in opposite hands as they stared blankly out at the partygoers.

"I don't know who they are," he admitted in confusion. "Maybe they're someone's plus one? Plus ones?" he corrected, turning fully to look more closely at them. "I'll ask Winston and—" But it didn't matter; already the girl was flouncing off in their direction. She graced them with a curtsey that was much friendlier than the one she gave him, and then proceeded to pepper them with questions. Fulton shrugged and turned away, walking off to do his duty as a host and mingle with everyone at least once.

* * *

Later on, when the sun wasn't quite so high in the sky and a few clouds provided some relief, he managed to find Winston and keep the butler's attention for more than three seconds. Widow March called for a napkin and the youngish man offered it with a stately bow and a wink, causing the old lady to blush as she thanked him.

"Enjoying ourself, sir?" he asked teasingly as he turned back to Fulton, the polite smile still etched on his face.

"Oh yes, I just _live_ for parties," Fulton replied sarcastically, causing the butler to laugh. "Tell me, who are those twins over there? Who do they belong to?" Winston followed his young master's eyes to the twins, who were still in the same spot near the walkway. The twenty-nine year old man wrinkled his brow and tilted his head.

"If I remember correctly, they came in behind the Summerwood family. I suppose they might be related to them. They had an invitation, though; there's no way they just snuck in." Fulton shrugged. He had spoken to them, but they had answered with wooden, almost rehearsed replies and he'd moved on without learning much about them at all.

"I suppose it doesn't matter. Maybe they're foreign visitors. They weren't really interesting at all." He shrugged again and turned the twosome out of his mind, taking one of Winston's plentiful napkins and dabbing at a dull brown spot where Miss Walsh had managed to stain his shirt with her gelato.

"Who knows?" Winston agreed before being called again from across the lawn. He bowed dismissively to Fulton before turning on his heel and weaving briskly, but gracefully, through the crowd. Fulton watched him leave, sighing to himself before glancing up at the sun.

 _By the looks of things, four hours to go._

* * *

 _The two men were exact replicas of one another, from the ruddy hair and lanky arms down to the sparse mustaches and scars on their right wrists. They stood, glasses in hand, though neither one took a single drink. They watched the party, but more importantly they watched the denizens of the manor house. They noted the lithe movements of the butler, and how those sharp hazel eyes kept track of everyone and everything happening in his master's yard._

 _They watched the master himself, still a child, speaking on equal terms with gentry more than twice his age. They saw the brilliant emerald irises dulled with boredom and annoyance, and the choppy movements of a boy not yet used to his growing body. They kept note of every movement, every word spoken, every gesture, and every expression, relaying it back to their mistress almost simultaneously._

 _Their mistress cooed with glee at the sight, the audible sound of clapping hands in their ears though she was nowhere near them. Still, she was never far from them, either. They were the woman's products, with no will of their own other than a burning desire to please their creator and work for her ultimate plans. But the plan wasn't ready for action yet, no. The boy was perfect, but he had to grow older. It was best to wait._ _ **Bide your time**_ **.**

 _The two dropped their glasses on the ground and turned, leaving the party without looking back. If the mistress wanted to wait, then they would wait. Besides, they still had to stop in the city and pick up a few unsuspecting humans._

 _She was hungry._

* * *

 **Afterword** : I'm getting back into the groove of things for the new year! :D Hope everyone else is, too!


	5. Tales of the Past

**Author's Note:** I repeat my earlier words:

 **If I owned Hellsing, I wouldn't be depending on Student loans.**

* * *

The faded photograph was of a brilliant summer's morning. A pair stood beneath the outstretched limbs of a large tree; a young woman and a young boy, side by side and smiling. The boy was sweaty and looked stiff in the suit, but still smiled with the forced happiness of someone who was already used to posing for pictures in inopportune moments. The woman had her hat perched on her head in such a way that her eyes were almost glowing in the shadow it created. Her smile was almost malicious. The picture itself was set in a pristine frame, hung in a place of honor on the wall.

The little boy was not-so-little anymore, being a strapping young lad of one and twenty. He was even taller now, limbs stretched and filled so that the gangly awkwardness was replaced by assured movements. His hair was still short and neatly cut, but after years of taming it had become somewhat manageable, save the hottest days of the year, where it still bent and curled like a pig's tail in the humid air. His glasses seemed to fit his face now instead of dwarf it, though his skin was still pale and his feet large enough to trip over if he didn't watch his step.

He looked up at the picture—almost fondly, it seemed—while the aging butler dusted off his desk. Winston was nearing forty now, and his movements were beginning to slow. He was still an excellent marksman and could draw and put a bullet in a moving target faster than the best of the Hellsing operatives, but it took him longer to climb stairs and Fulton could often hear audible cracks of the older man's bones as he went about with his daily tasks.

"Almost done, old man?" He teased, looking over his shoulder. It was no secret at the mansion that if there was one thing the butler was vain about, it was his performance. Fulton wasted no time in making sly jibes at the man who had been one of the best male role models in his all-too-important teenage years. Winston straightened up, arching a brow imperiously at Fulton. He wiped the cloth sarcastically slowly across the desk, moving in slow motion as he picked up an ink well and cleaned beneath it. Fulton laughed and waved him away, sitting down in the chair that had once been too large for him, and was now at the very height of its adjustments in order to make room for the young man's legs.

"Will you be up late this evening?" Winston asked, tactfully ignoring his employer's subtle remark. Fulton kept his own hours, and as long as he had the paperwork done by their deadline, the other Knights never spoke a word about it. Government officials weren't meant to be up and down with the sun, in any case. To make matters worse, Fulton often adopted the sleeping schedule of his vampire 'guardian' for months at a time, only to sleep for three days in a row to make up for lost hours and mounting stress. "I'll leave the lamps on for you."

"No, thank you, Winston. I'm only going to speak with Seras and then I'll be turning in as well. I'll see to the lamps," he added quickly as Winston turned to go. "Just finish up and lock the back."

"Very good, Sir." Winston paused again at the door. "Sleep well." Fulton nodded and he left, shutting the door behind him with a deft _snick_. He looked back at the picture from his chair, rocking it back and forth slightly and listening to the quiet squeaking as he considered the boy in the green suit. No longer was he that timid, ungainly child who'd inherited a fortune's worth of troubles in one night. Now he was more confident, stronger, sharper. _I've grown well, if I do say so myself._

"You have grown well," an ethereal, disembodied voice answered his thoughts. "But you're still _human_." He turned around to see Seras leaning against the window, the moonlight illuminating her hair in a halo-like effect. But he knew all too well that his vampire was no angel.

"And just what is that supposed to mean?" he asked with faux hurt in his tone.

"To err is human," Seras quoted in reply. "You're still a human, with human mistakes and desires." She tilted her head at him. "And in my eyes, you're still that little boy who kept tripping over his own shoelaces, so don't get pigheaded over a few extra pounds and some finer features."

"You're always so good to me, Seras," he replied in a deadpan voice. "Telling me of my every fault every time you show up."

"I took it upon myself over a decade ago to teach you how to be proper. Reminding you of your faults is merely one of my methods." She studied one glove, fingers spread as though she were trying to check her nails through the thin white fabric. "Anyway, in my defense, I _did_ admit that you grew well. If you haven't, then I've aged a day and a half." Of course Seras hadn't aged; while he'd grown older and broader, she'd stayed the same petite beauty that she'd been when he first met her in the attic.

Her looks had come in handy over the years, especially when the mission resided on the finer arts of seduction. Many men (and a few women) were more than willing to give up all their secrets for one more sultry glance, one last errant hand running along their leg. And Seras, for her part, seemed to be fine with playing the part. Fulton just sort of knew that she never went farther than a quick peck on the cheek, and she always seemed so distant when she worked. He supposed that, to her, it was just another night on the job. As long as she finished her mission, she was willing to do almost anything, except sacrifice her men.

Even himself, when he was in those strange teenage years, had felt a small bit of attraction towards her. It had been during that mysterious age of discovery, when he wasn't sure who—or _what_ —he was. He was sure that she probably had known of his puppy love for her, but she'd never mentioned it. Nothing had come of it; he'd grown out of his infatuation after a few short months and had gone back to seeing her as the part-tormentor, part-teacher sort of sisterly figure that he'd always known. He looked back on those years with a cringing sense of shame, but was loath to forget them entirely. They'd taught him some important things, especially on the subjects of decency and youthful allure.

Plus, when his halfhearted love for her was over, he had become aware of a new magnetism—that of power. To give her an order was no longer an embarrassing ordeal, and he almost relished the fact that theoretically, she had to do whatever he told her to. Of course, he was very reluctant to abuse such power, even to this day.

Seras had never hidden or downplayed the fact that, in the end, she was _his_ servant instead of the other way around. In his youth she had been an authority figure because that was what he had needed. She had molded him into a leader through an increasingly strange mixture of tender love, harsh punishment, and mild torture. She was his female role model, the pinnacle of what a proud, independent woman was supposed to be and do. It wasn't until he was almost sixteen that that power shift began to happen, slowly but surely. He began to take the reins more and more, until one day he realized that she hadn't given him an order in nearly half a year. Now she was a permanent figure in the backdrop of his life, offering helpful advice and ready for his call, should it come.

And the years had changed Seras, too. He had only noticed it more as of late, but whenever he turned his mind to ponder over her situation (always making sure that his mental barriers were up so that she wouldn't know), he found himself surprised. In the beginning she had been strict, demanding, and overpowering in her forceful authority. It had almost been borderline-sadistic, if one were to go that far.

But nowadays, Fulton couldn't help but wonder if that had been a very roundabout act of kindness on the Draculina's part. As leader of the Hellsing Organization, he had to make unfair, unjust, and sometimes downright cruel decisions. Without his early childhood molding, he wouldn't have half the strength he did now. An adolescence of pampering would have been the catalyst to make him crack under the pressure that was placed on him daily.

However, now Seras was sometimes kind for hours at a time, cracking jokes and telling stories. She would train her men with the same mixture of tough love that she'd given Fulton, and spar with Winston. When the butler accidentally snapped her glasses in a match gone wrong, she'd only joked about him paying for a new pair before using her glasses to fix them—Fulton had been sure she would have snapped his neck instead of being nonchalant about her beloved spectacles.

She was also growing more and more distant, too. Entire nights would be spent staring up at the moon, searching the cratered surface for—what? When Fulton dared to prod her mind, he found it inaccessible. She would blank out for hours on end, her fingers brushing the metal bird pin that remained eternally on the lapel of her jacket. Her eyes wouldn't be sad, or longing; instead, they'd be blank as a slate, no emotion visible in her features. He couldn't understand it, but he had a very good feeling that she was thinking about the past, lost in a world of memories.

He had no idea how she had been put into a casket in the attic. He had studied enough about the attic floor, the casket, and Seras herself to know that she'd been locked under a powerful sleeping spell, broken only when he'd fallen and spilled his blood onto her body. He had looked to the journal for any answers, but the last entry was only a horrific, yet somewhat amusing anecdote.

Apparently his great-grandfather, in his youth, had sent Seras and 'A' on a mission where Seras had been sliced in half, torso separated from her legs. His great-grandmother had screamed bloody murder when 'A' walked back in with Seras's upper half, her legs following behind with shadows writhing obscenely where her hips should have been. His grandfather spoke of the healing process, and how it had taken over three hours, even with the copious amounts of virginal blood Seras had drank _and_ being stuck in a coffin chock-full of the soil of her birthplace.

After that, all talk of vampires just… disappear. The last thing was a small note at the end of a page stating that the Hellsing Organization's involvement in the British and American Bioterrorist Attack had been recognized with a statue in London, and the King and Queen had both spoken at the unveiling. This had him on a two night journey to read up on the Bioterrorist Attack, only to find out that the journal meant the Zeppelin Night of the late 1990's. He then had to go and ask Seras what had happened, and she'd given him a highly abridged version about the events and how Nazis had flown a zeppelin into the manor and then met with Hellsing and Vatican forces in town.

"So you fought them off by yourself, Seras?" he'd asked, hoping to hear her slip up and speak about this 'A' he kept reading of. But she'd only smiled and shrugged before phasing into mist, her nonverbal cue for him to stop talking and, unless it was something less personal, to never ask her about it again. But even with her story he'd had no more clues. The journal ended there, with a page torn into fragments by a small child clinging to the last hope he could find in a family coup.

Fulton traced a pattern on the desk, coming up out of his thoughts to see Seras looking strangely at him. He smiled, hoping to throw her off the scent. He tried to think of a very personal question—unless she was in a good mood, she'd go away and leave him alone.

"Seras, how old were you when you were turned?" he asked. She arched a brow, but to his surprised she answered.

"Nineteen. I would have been twenty in December, and I was turned into a vampire that July." She took off her glasses, running a hand through her hair as she searched his mind quickly. "Why?"

"You immediately started working for my ancestor, Integra Hellsing, right?" Her lips thinned as she pressed them together tightly.

"You already know this story," she snapped quietly, her tone warning him not to pursue the current line of questioning any further. He leaned forward in the chair and laced his fingers, eyeing her over the rims of his glasses. She stared back evenly, her eyes flashing with a dark inner light. He took a deep breath, sniffed, and rubbed his nose with his thumb.

"Fine then," he said with a conviction he didn't really feel. "Seras?"

"Yes?"

"I _order_ you to tell me about 'A'." He sat up straight, his manner no-nonsense and commanding. "And don't try to skip over details, either. If I ask you a question, you better answer it to the best of your abilities. Sit down," he added, motioning to the chair across the desk. He was proud of himself for not flinching when her shadows whipped in the air in her anger, narrowly missing his nose as she stormed by the desk and threw her body into the chair, arms crossed. The rage was evident on her face, but to her credit she didn't raise a hand to harm him.

"I've told you before, _Sir_ ," she hissed, cheeks rosy with her anger. "This 'A' is a top Hellsing secret, and we neither summon nor speak of him until such conditions are met that were set decades ago by that bastard of a man, Enoch." Fulton took a deep breath; it was not the answer he wanted.

"Every time I've ever asked, you've always rattled off the same spiel. "Rules, exceptions, your great-grandfather was a bloody daft pillock and I'll hate him forever", etcetera. If you _really_ can't tell me about him, then tell me what the rules say so that I can hurry up and break them, why don't you?" Her anger must have been leaking through their mental bond and fueling his own mood; he hardly ever spoke so harshly to her. He closed his eyes, willing himself to stay calm. _Take it or leave it, Seras. I_ _ **will**_ _know, one way or the other._ He heard her sigh and opened his eyes to see a shadow of resignation cross her features. She pursed her lips and began to speak.

"I'm only going to say this once, so listen up," she muttered from between clenched teeth. "Your great-grandfather was a narrow-minded idiot that singlehandedly brought down one of the greatest and oldest empires still alive in London after the Millennium attacks. The only reason he saw fit to end the Hellsing reign was this: he was afraid."

"Of what?"

"Of vampires. Of what happens when supernatural creatures fight one another with the intent to kill." She looked up at the ceiling, effectively hiding her face from him. "There was an… accident. It was tragic, and it scarred everyone involved, but if he had just had the foresight to realize what he was _doing_ , perhaps he could have not only prevented the whole thing from happening, but saved him some regret later as well." She paused, her hands fisting around her shirt sleeves. She looked back at him and he saw that in her mind, she'd already said too much.

"Go on." Fulton sat as patiently as he could while she gathered her thoughts.

"The Hellsing as I knew it was destroyed. You know as much already. It was turned into governmental sword-for-hire agency and became more invested in stocks than with soldiers. It's clear to me that by your father's time, vampires were nonexistent again. That's what your great-grandfather wanted. In that, he'd won." She stared down at her runes. "Before I was imprisoned in the attic, I was given very specific orders."

"What orders?"

"To lie in wait. To stay ready in case another Hellsing, some day in the future, would need my help. Or to rot until Judgment Day, whichever came first." Her nose wrinkled. "To access the situation and act accordingly, always with the best wishes of the Organization at heart. To never speak of… of 'A'. To never try and wake him, or contact him. The only time I may raise him from his eternal slumber is if the threat to the Hellsing family is so great that even _I_ cannot handle it." Fulton gulped; did such a threat exist? Seras was nearly omnipotent!

"They let _you_ out before _him_?" Fulton blurted out without thinking. "Not that you're bad, it's just…." He faltered, cheeks burning. "What I mean is—if what you say is true, this 'A' has powers greater than yours. He could be… unstoppable!" he exclaimed, throwing up his hands. "Why the hell would you want to summon something like that back to existence!? No thank you!"

"Don't speak of things you have no knowledge of," Seras growled harshly. She stood, glaring at him, eyes scorching like hellfire. "It's soul-crushing to lose your freedom, even more so to have it forcefully taken from you," she stated, waving a hand so that the blackened runes caught his eye. "Your great-grandfather took that from me _twice_." She turned on her heel. "That is why, to my dying day, I shall _never_ forgive him." She disappeared before she made it to the door, the last click of her boot on the tile echoing in the large office.

Fulton stared at the empty expanse that had once been filled with her presence, and her anger at him. He sighed, more confused than before. Now he was conflicted on more than one account—was there something more powerful than Seras? If so, did he dare allow her to summon this force so destructive that his great-grandfather sought to wipe all history of it from the earth?

* * *

 **Afterword:** I'm enjoying rewriting this so much! It's nice to add new little nuances to their relationship. I also simplified the crazily overdetailed plot of why Seras can't call Alucard yet. She sounded so melodramatic before. Now, not as much. Thumbs up all around.


	6. Willa

**Author's Note:** My original note was pretty long, but I'll only keep the most important part.

 **P.S.A.:** The Crimson Fucker has arrived. That is all.

* * *

For the remainder of the week, Seras refused to even be in the same wing of the house as Fulton. Not verbally of course—such a childish thing was below her, but she spent all her time either in the basement or on the roof, gazing up with silent intensity at the moon. She seemed almost depressed, uninclined to speak to anyone and dragging her feet from the roof back to her bedroom at each day's dawning. Her field reports—when she could be roused from her bed to do a mission—were hand-delivered by Winston along with a scorching, guilt-ridden glare. Winston wanted Fulton to go talk to her, apologize for 'whatever he had done' and make it up to her the best he could. Fulton was not inclined to do any such thing, and his opinion was that Seras could languish into an early grave if his order put her that out of sorts.

Sadly, most of the staff and soldiers also had a soft spot for Seras, and her sadness was their sadness. They sank themselves into a doom-and-gloom atmosphere, with Fulton himself being the only one unaffected in any way. The walls seemed to ooze with apathy, the floorboards squelched with sorrow, and the ceiling leaked wretchedness. By the following Monday, Fulton was very nearly ready to tear his hair out and demand that she give up this charade. No one could be that emotional over being forced into telling a relatively harmless tale, and not even _that_! She'd only told him the stipulations of her contract with his ancestors! Had the memory been so much that she had been overcome with grief for such a small thing?

Finally, he simply grew _too tired_ of the melodramatics and declared to the household that the very next day he and Winston would be taking a day-trip to the palace. They'd been invited as special guests of honor to engage in a private audience with the royal family, and he fully intended to take the invitation—if for nothing less than getting out of the house. Usually Seras would have accompanied him on such an auspicious trip, but he was tired of her behavior. Winston would do very well, along with the bodyguards that were always stationed around the royal residence.

Winston hadn't been to the palace before, so he was excited to see how the place was ran and presumably hoped to pick up some pointers for his own staff. Seras had declined comment, barely acknowledging Winston's muffled message, relayed through the coffin lid. She had, however, reminded Fulton that she was only a call away if trouble _did_ happen to arise. Fulton didn't respond, pushing her out of his mind and shutting her away. She really did annoy him when she acted that way, all morose and quiet, with a voice that sounded as though existence itself were exhausting. She was a vampire, for Christ's sake; what was so very tiring to her?!

He promptly put her out of his thoughts and conversed pleasantly with Winston as they drove through the streets to the royal palace. Just leaving the manor and its dampened spirits had lightened both their moods, and Fulton genuinely enjoyed the older man's company. Winston was the only thing he truly had to a friend. He couldn't really count Seras as a friend, per say, and the only other person who fit the description was that horrible, pish-posh Miss Walsh. _She_ was his acquaintance at most, rival at worst.

So Winston, despite being more of a role model than a true friend, was what he considered the closest to the real deal. And besides, the man was just plain interesting. He had plenty of stories about his time in Russia under the English army, plus several pages worth of other anecdotes that had Fulton rolling on the floor in laughter when they were both in a good mood.

"I'm glad to see that you're in a better mood," Winston remarked as they drove through the streets, stopping more than once as traffic backed up along the main roads. "You've been rather out of sorts lately. Miss Victoria has too, I've noticed. I was wondering if it was perhaps the weather, but I doubt something as simple as that would affect the two of you." There was the usual calm geniality, underneath which a burning curiosity kindled. The man's eyes glanced towards Fulton's reflection in the rearview mirror, his hands tightening and loosening quickly on the steering wheel. Fulton, used to telling Winston his business and getting advice, nearly let the whole story slip. There was just one thing, though…. _Top Hellsing secret_ , Seras had said.

"I'm sorry, Winston, but I spoke to Seras in confidence. It took me too long to earn her trust, only to undo it on something as trivial at this." He hid his eyes from the butler, staring out the window at the passerby hurrying up and down the sidewalks, paying no attention to the unmarked car. He wished that he _could_ tell Winston; surely the man would have opinions about the great and powerful 'A', mysterious as the whole ordeal was. But just as he would have kept any secret of Winston's locked in his heart and carried to the grave, he also had the same obligation towards Seras as her former protégé and current employer.

"I see," Winston said, completely unoffended by the sidestepping answer. Those handsome brown eyes pierced the reflection once more, but he said nothing and didn't seem to feel the need to pry. Fulton knew that he might have done so if it had been one of the soldiers, but Winston had a deep regard for Seras that had long crossed the border into an affectionate crush, and he seemed to hold the idea that the vampiress could do no wrong. Everything she said was for Fulton's own good, everything she did was for the peace and safety of the organization, and on top of it all she was a very beautiful young woman.

He was head over heels, though by now he was getting old enough to be her father. It didn't seem to bother him that Seras never showed any intention of returning his affections, though Fulton did notice that she gave Winston the same sort of respect that she usually saved only for himself, which meant that she held him above the others in her mental hierarchy. It seemed that he was the type of man who could go through life loving someone from afar, and showing it through tokens of gratitude and admiration rather than bold displays. His duties towards her weren't an extension of his job description—tending after her needs as a butler was the way he proved her his love for her.

Fulton wondered absently whether Seras noticed this and, if she did, what she thought about it. He supposed that as long as it didn't create a rift in the organization's internal workings, they could just work it out for themselves without his help. For all he knew, they had worked it out already, and that was why Winston never tried to take it any farther. It was something too personal to ask, so he pushed it out of his mind and looked back up to see that Winston was regarding him again, this time with a wrinkled brow.

"You're concerned," the butler said knowingly. "About Miss Victoria?"

"I was just thinking about her, yes," Fulton admitted. "I… I hope I didn't push her too far. I keep waiting for her to snap out of it, but that doesn't seem like it will happen anytime soon."

"Don't." Fulton blinked in surprise.

"Don't?" he repeated. Winston nodded, stopping at a stoplight and tapping his fingers idly on the steering wheel.

"Don't worry about her. Miss Victoria is tenacious of spirit, to put it lightly. She'll never let something like hurt feelings keep her down for long. She has her own way of coping, just as we all do. When she finishes, she'll be her usual self again." He said it with such conviction that Fulton really _wanted_ to believe it without question. "Besides, you should cheer up a little! Don't let the royal family see you in low spirits. Put our best foot forward, right?" he prompted, pointing at the building they were rapidly approaching. Fulton nodded and cleared his throat, straightening his tie.

They passed security and finally were able to hand the car over to a valet, Winston gazing up in awe at the sight of the palace up close. Fulton also stared for a moment, willing to let the butler have his fill the same way Seras had let _him_ many years before, when his attention was caught by a pair of servants.

"Winston… don't we know them?" he asked hesitantly, tugging at the man's sleeve. Winston tore his eyes away from the majestic building to look at the servants heading their way. His brow arched and he tilted his head, lips pursing as he thought.

"They do seem familiar, but… I can't place where I might have seen them before." He shook his head.

"I know. It seems like it was a long time ago, wasn't it?" Fulton crossed his arms, staring unabashedly at the pair. Something about it made the hair of his neck stand on end, but he couldn't place it. Perhaps he'd seen them on the telly? Or maybe he'd noticed them before on a trip to the palace and it was just in the back of his mind. Winston didn't seem incredibly worried, and he trusted the butler's sense of danger. He rubbed the back of his neck, forcing the hairs down as he took a deep, settling breath.

"Hello," the servants spoke as one. They were both tall and lanky, but well-proportioned. Their hair was short but messy, and a brownish-red color that caught the light and alternated between copper and mud. They had stubble dotting their jaws and a very sparse mustache on their upper lips. Small oval glasses sat on the ends of their noses, over which slanted gray eyes stared with a curiously blank expression. They bowed, and Fulton noticed a scar on their right wrists as their sleeve rode above the bottom edge of their pristine glove.

"Hello," Fulton greeted back politely, blinking and breaking his stare. "I'm Sir Hellsing; I have an invitation." The men's eyes flitted towards each other and, for a fraction of a second, Fulton felt the bottom of his stomach drop out. _God,_ he muttered inwardly as he shifted on his feet, praying that his stomach wouldn't start growling or something. He must be getting gas, though his brunch had been light fare.

"Y-es," the men drawled in unison, strange grins curling the edges of their mouths. "You're expected," one added. Fulton barely managed to stop himself from wrinkling his nose; when they spoke separately, it was easier to hear the high, nasally tone. Were they speaking right in the back of their throats or something?! "You've been expected for some time, in fact," they said, now one again.

"O-oh, I didn't know we had fallen behind," Fulton faltered, turning to Winston, who was already digging his pocket watch from his suit pocket. "The traffic was—"

"Never mind; it is of no importance now," the twins said commandingly. One broke from the other with a swift, if not stiff, motion. He pointed at Winston. "You, please follow me," he spoke, in the same nasally drawl as his brother. "We have a place ready for you; this is to be a private audience."

"Of course," Winston bowed, nodding supportively to Fulton before turning and following the twin without another word. Fulton watched them round the corner, then looked back to see his twin waiting patiently.

"Are you prepared?" he asked, a strange intonation in his voice. Fulton nodded and he turned on his heel, walking briskly in the direction of a side door. Fulton followed silently, thinking as he obediently trotted along at the servant's heels. Why was this a private audience? Was it because he had brought Winston instead of Seras? He had no time to ask the servant, instead using all his power to try and keep up with the man, who seemed to be always two corridors ahead. Fulton picked up speed, trying and failing to memorize his way through the labyrinth of passages. He could never understand how the servants could remember where each door went. The servant finally stopped beside a small door, almost hidden behind a spiral staircase. Fulton paused, confusion making him suspicious.

"We're meeting in here?" he asked warily. "I'm almost always in the throne room, or the meeting hall." The twin didn't seem phased by his almost accusatory tone. Instead it blinked slowly, as though it had to think about the act as it happened.

"You are to wait here," he said firmly, looking down his nose at the heir. "You are to wait here until further preparations can be made to accommodate you. The orders were adamantly given." Fulton felt a rush of understanding, followed by embarrassment for his outlandish thoughts. He felt foolish; of course this was just a smaller meeting room—perhaps the larger one was already being used. He smiled apologetically and allowed the twin to usher him inside. He turned to ask how long he might be expected to wait, but the door was already closed behind him.

He bit back a sigh, making a mental note to ask the king about his standards for hired help, when he noticed how dimly the room was lit. Turning, he saw that there was neither table nor chairs, other than long pews. He blinked, looked at the door and back again, and scratched his head. Had the servant led him to the wrong room? This was a chapel, not a meeting hall. Or maybe he really was meant to be here, for some strange reason. He stepped forward and passed through an archway, looking up to see a brilliant stained-glass rendition of Christ in Heaven, Gabriel at his right side as doves and angels sang praises.

He smiled, but that faded as he saw that he was not alone in the room. He started, thinking that it might have been one of the princesses, but it was a woman that he had never seen before. He walked as quietly as possible down the middle aisle, noting that her hands were clasped reverently and trying to avoid startling or bothering her. He watched her from his peripherals, hands in his pockets as he pretended to be absorbed in solemn contemplation.

At first sight, she reminded him of a picture he'd seen once of the mummified remains of St. Bernadette. Not that she looked like a mummy, no; there had been a pale, lovely waxen mask and gloves placed over the mummy, and the figure had looked as though the nun was sleeping rather than dead. This woman had the same porcelain smooth features, along with a ghastly paleness that made her skin look embalmed and waxen. All she was lacking was the rosary and the glass coffin. Despite this, she still looked a picture of beauty and perfection.

Her hair was a mass of chestnut curls that fell down her back, bangs covering a smooth forehead and ringlets hanging just below her chin. Her lips were thin and peach-colored, with broad nostrils and a dainty upward tip to the edge of her nose. Her eyes were closed, but the dark eyelashes fell across her cheeks in a distracting manner, bringing to mind a poet's sleeping lover. Her dress was beyond old-fashioned—it was antique. It looked as though she had stepped from a 1890s pamphlet ad for a clothing warehouse. Even her shoes were not shoes, but lace-up boots with gold buttons that caught the light from the stained-glass.

" _C'est beau_ ," the woman whispered suddenly, catching Fulton off-guard. Her eyes opened, but the shifting colors of the stained glass made it virtually impossible to make out the hue of her irises. He assumed them brown, due to the dark sheen that shimmered in the light.

"Pardon?" he asked, not wanting to shock her, but unsure if she even knew that he was there. Her head turned and she gazed at him with wide eyes, mouth opened in a little 'o'. He smiled awkwardly, dipping his head in an informal bow. "Forgive me. I didn't want to startle you. What did you say?" For a moment it seemed as though she would not answer, her eyes trained infallibly on his face, but then she smiled and raised a hand gracefully to the window.

"I was speaking of _la couleur du vitrail._ It is comparable to Heaven itself, no?" She turned her eyes to the image of Christ, an expression resembling pure devotion shining through her features. "When the sun shines through the glass, the dye within lights up in brilliant rays; _il est comme par magie, est-ce pas_?" She sighed in contentment before turning back to him. "I have been waiting such a long time here. And your face, just now it brings to my mind a recollection."

"Oh?" Fulton felt a strange, hollow pit in his stomach that was gnawing at him. He forced a shaky smile on his face, trying to keep his eyes from straying to the door. If the servant would come back, that would be great… this woman was making him nervous, though she was doing little more than talking to him. She had no threatening air, no anger in her tone, but still he felt as though he were getting into a lot of danger by remaining in the room. "I'm sorry ma'am, but I don't understand. What do you mean?"

"I look at your face, and I see the loss of a lover," the woman said simply. "I see a father's pain… I see a _lot_ of pain." He expected her eyes to leave his, but the dark irises stayed focused on his emerald ones. "I see your eyes…. you know who you are, don't you? Do you remember your past lives?"

"Past lives?" Fulton repeated, thoroughly befuddled. He backed away as she stepped closer, peering up intently.

" _Oui_ , your face… it is the face of _tragedy_ ," she whispered in a tone that was almost gleeful.

"Who _are_ you?" he blurted out, feeling every bit of blood rush from his head towards his feet. A chill crept down his spine and his heart began to hammer. "What are you?" he added in a whisper.

"I am…Willa," she answered calmly, though hesitantly, as if she had to think about it herself. "And I am your plague." She smiled sweetly, looking at him through her eyelashes. "Don't fret, _mon petite rossignol_ , I've been watching you for a long time. I know that you don't like pain. I'll make it as painless as possible." She reached for him, and his limbs turned to jelly. It was a wonder he didn't collapse back onto the pew behind him. His mouth worked, trying to call for Winston, for help, for _anyone_ , but unable to speak. The woman smiled with her teeth now, showing sharp canines glinting wetly in the light. Then, glancing over her shoulder at the image of the Lord, doves flying towards Heaven, where his soul was invariably headed unless something…a miracle… _doves_ ….

 _ **Seras**_ _!_ She was across town, back at Hellsing manor, but she would hear him. Sure enough, her mind swarmed through his with its usual acuteness, searching for the answer to his cry for help in order to see what she was up against. He'd felt it before, and kept his mind as open to hers as possible. Then, painful as a slap across the face and sharp as the crack of a pistol, he felt an emotion run from her mind to his across their bond faster than any other before. It was terror, sheer terror, and he in turn became frightened as well. Sensing this, she threw up her barriers before he could ask what was wrong, only three words making it through the link before it was severed entirely.

 _I'm coming. Survive._

"Now, _mon beau d_ _î_ _ner_ , I'm afraid we must bid adieu. The time has come for you to die; you must be the catalyst for your family's _expiation_ , and the end of my suffering." She smiled, her fingers curving lovingly around the lapels of Fulton's suit jacket as she yanked his jellied form towards her. She leaned towards his neck, but the stained glass exploded into a rainbow of shards and stopped her progress. Distracted, she dropped him as she gasped softly, her eyes following one of Christ's eyes as it plummeted to the ground and busted on the alter.

Fulton found his movement again and wasted no time, crawling on his hands and knees underneath one of the pews and hunkering down, his arms over his head as he stared at two pairs of boots, one buttoned kid and the other toughened leather. He saw the kid boots disappear between folds of cloth as Willa curtsied.

"Draculina," she purred, and though Fulton couldn't see her face from his current, slightly cowardly point of view, he knew she wasn't as happy as she sounded. There was a hard edge beneath the gentleness, the same as when Winston was angry with him for something he knew better than to let happen. "The darling servant, _le protégé du roi_ , the beloved pet…." Now there was no tranquility, only a sneering vehemence. Seras didn't bother with answering, and Fulton felt the full extent of her powers roaring to life, spreading over the chapel and cloaking the room in darkness. He winced and drew himself in tighter, knowing that a battle was imminent.

 _Little coward_ , a voice sighed in his mind, and he saw a shadowy figure pass by him and check him over for injuries before fading into mist. The antique-esque vampiress let out a low cackle of laughter, taking a swaying step forward.

"Shall we pick up where we left off last time, _mignonette?_ " He didn't know why, but the name made Seras all the angrier. He felt the rush of bloodlust through their bond, his body reacting to the adrenaline where hers could not. He knew it was folly to stop her at this point, and silently let the seals on her gloves release to the fullest extent. Immediately the pews were thrown backwards—and him along with them—all landing in a splintered heap on the opposite wall. Her shadows jumped forth and cradled him to the point of safety, if not comfort. He rubbed his ribs, feeling that they'd be bruised as he scrambled out of the way again. With no pew to hide behind, he simply pressed his body into a corner and prayed that there wouldn't be any stray fire thrown his way.

Thankfully, neither vampiress was paying attention to him. They were currently locked in a standoff, hands clenched as shadows pushed each other into a submission. They seemed deadlocked and Fulton stared in awe at someone who was as strong as Seras. He'd never really seen anything like it before, much less considered the fact that someone like that _existed_. Then, things turned for the worse. Willa broke away and pulled her arms up, bringing them down like there was an imaginary piano with keys just waiting for her to slam down. Seras grunted and then backed away, eyes narrowed in anger. Fulton blinked, looking from woman to woman, trying to figure out what happened. Had it really happened so fast that he hadn't been able to see?

Seras turned, without warning, and body-slammed Willa into the wall. At the same time, Fulton felt shadows wrapping around his body and pulling him into the opposite wall. He fought at first, human instinct and panic warring against his common sense. Then his hands were literally tied with the shadows as he was forced back. There was a quick moment of fear as he couldn't breathe, but he forced himself to relax and he emerged, unscathed and in one piece, in his own basement. Looking around, he recognized Seras's bedroom, a place that he rarely frequented. Seras was there as well, slumped against the wall and clutching her side.

"S-Seras!" he saw blood oozing out of the wound, her ribs pale and stained against the red flesh; her intestines strained against her hand, trying to force their way past her fingers and into the bright light of the underground room. Seras was breathing heavily, her face even paler than usual as the floor became stained with her blood and fluids. He'd never seen her so injured before, but she didn't let out any signs of distress or pain other than the tight motions of her limbs. She pulled her hand away long enough to spit into the palm, rubbing it onto the wound to help seal it up. He watched with a macabre sense of wonder as her body knitted itself back together with the help of her shadows; it left a gaping hole in her suit, but the skin beneath was flawless once more.

Her breathing slowed and she swallowed, giving her head the smallest of shakes before she opened her eyes. She stared emptily at Fulton, who had more questions than answers at this point, but didn't allow him to ask any of them. She grabbed his hand in hers, ignoring the blood transferring onto his glove as she tugged him out the door and down the hallway.

"W-wait, Seras!?" he stammered. "What about Winston? Who was that? What are you—"

"There's no time. We have to hurry." She sped them along the basement corridors, down to parts that Fulton never went. He did recognize where they were going though; he'd been this far only once, when he was about fourteen. He'd gotten lost, and ended up having quite the adventure finding lost storage rooms and a wine cellar that he hadn't known existed. He had turned to go back, only to find himself facing a _very_ dark passageway that led even farther underground. He had let his curiosity overcome his frantic desire to get back to the main floor, and slowly descended the steps. His heart pounded in his ears, the feeling he got from the passageway was foreboding. Every nerve he had was on high alert.

He knew that _something_ was at the end of the tunnel, but each step only set him more on edge. It was only when he actually made to go that a hand had clamped down on his shoulder and he'd been turned around to face a wholly unhappy Seras. He had been marched up to the main floor without a word, even though Seras had seemed mad at him. There had been no punishment, but all the same he never went into the basement again unless he had Winston or Seras as a guide. Now, as they descended the stairs into the lowest part of the manor's basement levels, she seemed more intent on running away from the fight than she was anything else. It perplexed him; Seras wasn't the type to ever run away from a fight.

"Seras?" he asked again, huffing as he tried to keep up and feeling as though his arm might be yanked out of its socket if he dared to pause for a breath. "Where are we _going_?!" he shouted in exasperation. She stopped on a dime, grabbing his shoulders and digging her nails into them until the pain made him flinch.

"We have to go down and raise my master." She spoke with a solemnity that he had never heard from her before.

"Y-you mean 'A'?" he gulped, feeling a chill in his veins that had nothing to do with the basement air. "B-b-but—"

"I never became a true Nosferatu, and she's too much for me, even as strong as I've gotten," Seras said quickly, looking over his shoulder as though she expected the woman to come down the stairs after them. "It won't take her long to find us, if she's really insistent on chasing you down."

"But why me?" he asked wearily, shoulders slumping. All he'd wanted was an audience with the royal family! Why couldn't he go anywhere without being in peril? Seras's face twitched in some sort of involuntary spasm, as though she'd tasted something rotten, but she didn't answer.

"You have to give me permission," was all she said. "Hurry up and make your choice." The way she said it, the words hanging in the air between them like a death knell, made him even more afraid of what might happen.

"I don't know anything about this person," Fulton protested weakly. "He could turn on me and kill me." Seras shook her head impatiently, but didn't explain.

"Trust me." Those two words hit him in the heart. He'd talked about losing her trust, but he had forgotten all about his own. He looked her in the eyes, seeing the seriousness and honestly in her gaze. He looked down at the blood staining his glove, the thought of the gouge in her side spurring him on.

"Alright," he nodded. "Show me what we have to do." She offered him a rare, genuine smile and nodded also, letting go of his shoulders and leading him through to the basement again.

"Follow me." She led him down a side corridor that branched off the main one, where yet another flight of stairs awaited them. The staircase was too narrow for her to hold his hand to guide him, and she let go as she began to descend. He paused at the edge, his boot barely hanging from the top step as he stared down into the pitch blackness within. This was the belly of the manor, the lowest of the low points. A sudden breeze, smelling of nitre and ancient dust, blew the bangs from his face. Almost in the same instant, the air behind him stirred and drifted back into the stairwell. He shivered; _the house… it's as though the house were_ _ **breathing**_ _. It's pulling me in._

"Come along." Seras looked up at him, and he could only see the gleam of her glasses in the light. There was a glint of glowing crimson as she turned, and then silence as she descended without him. He followed her reluctantly, one hand on the wall to guide him as he went down into that place devoid of light, the murky nothing gaping like a large maw ready to swallow him alive. The brick beneath his palm became damp, and he yanked his hand away when the dampness proved to be warm rather than cool. His spine tingled with revulsion and he gritted his teeth, determined not to make a sound that would show how truly on edge he was. He kept expecting Seras to jump out at him from the shadows, laughing about the prank she'd pulled. But that would have been unlike her, and besides—that wound in her side was no mere jest.

When he reached a point that his feet could find no more steps, he stood forlornly and tried in vain to find some spark of light in front of him. He heard the echoing footsteps of Seras somewhere ahead of him, though, and bit his lip as he inched forward. There were no impediments to trip over, but the darkness made the journey seem like an eternity. Finally he bumped into something soft and cool; a quick run-over with his hand found two shoulder blades and proved that he'd bumped his nose on Seras' back.

"You wouldn't happen to have a lighter or something, would you?" he muttered, but she found his hand in the dark and pressed it against something that gave slightly when she pushed his fingers against it. He was still trying to puzzle it out when his eyes were blinded by a pulsing light. Squinting and blinking against the accosting glow, he saw that his hand was pressed against a _door_. The glowing came from runes that matched those on Seras' gloves, painted up and down the rotting wood and over the metal hinges. He stared in amazement, trying to figure out the meaning of them. Perhaps they were to keep this 'A' fellow in, the same way Seras' gloves kept her power under lock and key?

"This is….?" Fulton managed to say, and Seras pointed to the top of the doorframe, where the words _Avis Inferno_ were inscribed in the stone. _The Bird of Hell_. He glanced warily at her, but her face was as much an expressionless mask as it ever was. He gulped and pushed harder on the door, but it wouldn't budge. He looked at her again, this time imploringly. She took her hand off his and, with her superhuman strength, managed to make enough of a crack that they could both slide through. The hinges were rusted, and grated against each other with an earsplitting screech. There was another blast of warm air, this time from inside the room, but with it came the undeniable smell of old blood.

The room was dark, but the moment Fulton's foot landed across the threshold it lit up with runes. There were runes all over the walls, written in varying languages. There were voodoo symbols lining the cracks in the floor. Buddhist prayer scrolls hung from the ceiling, and Bible pages were tacked up on the backside of the door. In the middle of the floor, he was just able to make out the outline of a coffin; it was draped in heavy, rune-encrusted chains. He looked back at Seras, who was waiting on the other side of the threshold, and motioned to the room as a whole.

"Is all this really necessary?" he asked her in disbelief. _Then again_ , he thought, _the journal probably wasn't lying about this vampire's prowess. I'm sure it might be very necessary._ Seras shrugged.

"He wasn't to escape, under and circumstances," she explained quickly. "You have to invite me into the room." Fulton blinked in surprise. He hadn't thought that _that_ vampire myth was true, but perhaps certain spells had placed grains of truth in the lies surrounding the supernatural creatures.

"Come in," he said awkwardly, waving his hand for her to step forward. She obediently did so, and the moment _her_ boot hit the opposite end of the threshold, the pressure in the room increased threefold. The runes shimmered under her feet, but didn't seem to harm her in any way. She walked without hesitation over to the coffin, using the bottom part of her heel to push the chains from the top of the coffin. Fulton stepped behind her, craning his head at the ebony surface that was unscratched, though clearly very old.

" _The Bird of Hermes is my name_?" he quipped, reading the first line of text on the coffin's lid. "What is it with you vampires and birds?" Seras glared at him before shrugging again. But even then, her focus was not on him to punish him. She was instead more interested in the coffin. She tried to touch the lid, but the moment her fingers met the wood there was a loud _crack_ and sparks flew. She jerked her hand back, cursing under her breath and shaking the injured hand. Fulton saw black marks on the edges of her fingertips. "Are you alright?" he asked. "Maybe I should try." He touched the lid, satisfied when his hands were burned with some strange magical static electricity, and then pushed as hard as he could. He strained, grunting with the effort, but the coffin lid stayed put. It was as though it was nailed shut, though there were no nails in sight.

"The runes are holding it shut," Seras pointed out. "You'll have to make them release their spell."

"How do I do that?" he sighed, wiping sweat from his brow. Between his ministrations and the warmth of the room, he was beginning to perspire something fierce. "What, am I supposed to say "Listen here, I'm Fulton Hellsing and I demand that you release this vampire"?" he said sarcastically. Still, at the snarky sentence the runes flashed crimson and then faded somewhat, leaving just enough light to see by. Seras arched a brow imperiously and he felt his face flush. "Well… perhaps that _was_ it," he murmured in humiliation. He tried the lid again and it slid easily off the coffin, falling onto the chains with a loud rattling.

It was lucky that his child self hadn't clapped eyes on Seras before she'd drank his blood. The sight of the mummified corpse within, and then the _smell_ right after, made his entire adult mind cringe in utter revulsion. He backed away and fell to the floor, gagging and rubbing his nose as though pushing the rank odor away from him.

"Great God, he's disgusting! He smells like… like _dirt_!" he sputtered, wiping his eyes as they began to water. Dirt that had festered in sewage before lying for weeks in a cesspool at the edge of a medieval parish ripe with the plague, more like! He coughed again, shaking his head like a dog. "Horrible! You didn't smell this badly!"

"You didn't open the coffin all the way," she pointed out wisely as she stepped forward. She pulled her sleeve back, gazing emotionlessly at her pale wrist before taking a deep breath. Fulton knew what she was going to do, and hid his eyes. Still, he heard the quick slice of sharp fang through skin, the squelch of blood hitting the floor, the smooth dripping onto the dried skin of the corpse…. Fulton peeked quickly to see her lick the cut, effectively sealing the cut before swallowing and licking her lips. He wondered if her own blood tasted good, or if it tasted the same way he tasted his blood when he sucked his finger after getting papercuts. Could a vampire technically live off their own blood? He doubted it.

He was still turning this over in his mind when he felt _it_. He thought Seras was powerful, but her shadows and all their glory was nothing compared to the sheer power that flared through the room, making his every hair stand on end. He scrambled to his feet, eyes wide and heart pounding, blood rushing in his ears. He wasn't facing the coffin, having had to roll over in an effort to get up faster; the shadows on the wall elongated and became a man's form, red eyes opening from ceiling to floor. They searched the room before zoning in on him, pupils dilating before the eyes narrowed as one. He felt his heart freeze mid-beat, and in one instant knew _exactly_ how someone could die of fright.

He opened his mouth, working his jaw in an effort to call for Seras; the only sound he was capable of resembled a dying sheep. He forced his limbs to move, backing up until he was back to back with her. He felt that her body was loose, no tenseness in her limbs to show some semblance of fear or guard. And through their bond, her ecstasy shone through like a burning sun on a summer's day. She was _basking_ in this power in much the same way that he cowered from it, her body and mind thrumming with the simple pleasure of something so long denied her.

He managed to twist around, looking up at the long silhouette as it rose from the coffin and stood, shadows twisting into limbs that flexed, testing their newly reformed state. Seras's expression was one he'd never seen on her before, all bliss and smiling, cheeks aglow. The purely happy expression morphed into one of content before falling into her usual amused, slightly mocking grin.

"My master," she purred in reverence, a sound of welcome and warmth. There was an answering deep, silky chuckle that seemed to echo from everywhere in the room at once.

"Good afternoon, Police Girl."


	7. Preparing for War

Never before had he felt this panic welling within him. Even on that day, so many years ago, that his cousin had chased him to his death—this was something new to him, something all-encompassing. He had, as a child being chased by his murderous family, still felt a sense of control. It was through his actions that he lived, or died. But this… he had no control over this anymore. Or… did he?

He swallowed, taking a shaky breath as he peered up through the dim light of the runes at the figure that had stepped from the coffin and was now shaking the dust from its clothing. It was a man—Fulton had known as much from the journal—but the mental image he'd always had of the enigmatic 'A' was entirely different from this personification of the letter. As a child, he'd imagined 'A' to be an outward manifestation of strength, with bulging muscles and a thick trunk. The hair he'd left up to his imagination and it changed slightly from time to time in his mind. But this… this was… a bit anticlimactic, if he was honest with himself. No sprawling behemoth emerged from the coffin. It was only a man.

He was tall:he had that going for him, at least. But he was _bony_ , or at the very least naturally thin. His age? He seemed nearly as ageless as Seras, but a quick glance at his face, with an absence of real lines or wrinkles, had Fulton guessing him to be anywhere from his late thirties to mid-forties. His hair was long, dark, and blending seamlessly with the shadow of the room as it tumbled down his back. He flexed his fingers, looking at them with a sort of detached interest, and Fulton saw white gloves with rune inscriptions nearly identical to Seras's.

A sense of curiosity came over him, and Fulton stepped closer to the man, while still keeping Seras between them. He half-expected her to chide him on cowardice, but it was clear that his actions were the last thing on her mind at the moment. Her eyes followed the resurrected man's every move; Fulton noticed that it wasn't with a sense of worship that she watched him, but instead a mixture of awe and purpose. It was the look he'd have expected her to give a good friend that she had recently been reunited with, and was already making plans for.

The curiosity was overshadowed again by panic when the creature—man— _vampire_ noticed him. The being's crimson gaze, equal to Seras's familiar one in so many ways, slid over him thoughtfully. He stood stock-still under the scrutiny, afraid that any movement might show his fear and put him in the wrong position. The eyes narrowed in thin amusement, and then the figure stepped towards him and bent onto one knee, dark hair coming level to the young man's chest.

"Greetings, my master," he purred in the same soft, silky tone he'd addressed Seras in upon waking. Fulton gulped quietly, licking his lips before answering.

"Greetings," he replied, proud at the even tone of his voice, no hint of the trepidation he felt bleeding into the word. "I suppose that you're… 'A'?" That same faint amusement lit up the crimson orbs once more, mirroring Seras's familiar, mocking expression.

"A what?" the vampire answered with false innocence, the ghost of a grin passing across thin lips. "I've been called many things in my lifetime, but most people have the decency to finish their insults." He seemed entertained by the confused embarrassment that Fulton felt, and then his eyes slid quickly to Seras's form. Something passed between them, almost concrete enough to rest in the air between their bodies, and then Seras rolled her shoulders in an easy shrug.

"He's not without common sense," she quipped. The vampire grinned and she smirked, leaving Fulton puzzled and exasperated. _He's only been out of his box three minutes,_ he thought irritably. _Is this how it's going to be from now on, two sarcastic, undead tossers tag-teaming me every night?_ He straightened his shoulders in response to their (albeit subtle) mockery of him, mouth setting in a thin line as he looked between the two.

"What is your _name_?" he snapped, inserting as much authority into the question as he could, seeing the circumstances. The vampire rose from his knee, looking Fulton in the eyes as he continued to size him up. A cold wash of self-preservation washed down his spine, but the heir didn't dare break eye contact before his new servant did. After a moment, the vampire sniffed derisively and tilted his head.

"Your ancestors referred to me as Alucard. The last ones that I had the _pleasure_ of serving, in any case." The way the word rolled off his tongue left no question of whether it had really been a pleasure or not. He sounded bored now, eyes wandering over the room, resting twice on Seras before returning to his perusal of the only human in the room.

"Alucard," Fulton repeated, trying to work his tongue around the odd name. "Alucard." He frowned. "That's quite a name."

"No more of an oddity than yours, I'm sure." Fulton fought back the urge to offer a sharp retort, quelled only by the warning look in Seras's eyes. He directed his frown to her, along with a mental jab. _Stop staring at me as though I've done something wrong. Can't you see I'm trying to maintain some control here, since you haven't stepped up to the plate yet?_

 _That sort of control is only yours to give,_ she responded, her voice a cool breeze through his senses. _He is my master, trumped only by you. I wouldn't dare to usurp him. Not yet, at least,_ she added with a small smile. He huffed at her, the action gaining Alucard's attention. He stared for a long moment, first at Fulton, then at Seras. He grinned, his arm rising to beckon her closer. She obliged unhesitatingly, drawing near enough to him that he could touch her, while still maintaining a respectful distance. Fulton watched on thoughtfully; he knew from the journal that Seras had been close to this vampire, and he was almost excited to see their relationship in person.

"Seras," Alucard said, using her given name instead of the strange nickname he'd christened her with earlier. "How many years will you wait before you return to your old uniform? The red did look so enticing against your skin." Fulton blinked, trying to decide what red would look like on Seras and coming up short. His mental image of her was forever superimposed with navy pinstripes.

"When will you ditch your ancient getup?" she teased in return. "It's not the Wild West anymore." Alucard let out a huff of something that might have been laughter before shrugging one shoulder eloquently. Seras opened her mouth to say something else, but a rumble shook the rafters above them and settled into the stone. Alucard looked up questioningly, but Fulton was still looking at Seras long enough to see her blanch, her cheeks losing what little color they managed to carry naturally.

"Shit! I forgot!" she cursed, hand on her chin as she looked skyward as well. Alucard looked strangely at her, and she cleared her throat. "Well, there _was_ a reason we woke you up; I didn't forget about orders."

"I wondered," he said with a sharp-toothed grin, and Fulton wondered if 'scathing enjoyment' was his default setting. "What's going on?" When Seras didn't answer right away, he turned to Fulton.

"Willa. I mean, a vampire named Willa, is on the offense. We need to stop her before she actually kills anyone." He stopped himself from babbling, wincing when he couldn't stop the flow inside his mind from going on at full speed. Seras cut herself off from him abruptly, and he knew his inner worrying was starting to get on her nerves.

"It's _her_ ," Seras confirmed, but her tone was so affected that Fulton became more confused than relieved. Something again passed between them and Alucard's smile melted into a snarl. Seras looked away, her expression making her seem lost and small, smaller than Fulton ever recalled her being. "She's back. I don't know how, or why, but she is."

"Being _back_ means that she was here before," Fulton corrected her. Seras glared at him, but didn't dispute his offer. He took one look in her eyes and blinked, astonished. " _Was_ she here before?"

"That's a story for another day," she replied, her way of letting him know that she wasn't going to tell him anytime soon, unless he remembered to pester her about it again when they weren't being attacked. Her hand pressed against her side fleetingly, and Fulton's own side ached with the phantom memory of the pain. "I couldn't take the risk like I should've, not in the royal palace. Not with _him_ around," she explained quickly nodding to him as she addressed Alucard.

"How many souls do you have left?" he asked musingly. She hesitated now, looking away as the gears turned in her mind.

"Not enough to please you," she finally answered, half-defiant in her quick delivery.

"How many?" he repeated, his voice never raising an octave; still, Fulton felt the danger in the air and inched towards Seras, determined to somehow protect her from whatever threat loomed around them. "Fifty? Twenty?" She jerked her head back to look him eye to eye, taking in a deep breath.

"Only one," she spat, the two words sounding like a challenge. Silence hung in the air, Fulton staring between the two squared-off vampires with growing bafflement. What did they mean, _souls_? Then, something happened that he'd never thought he see in his lifetime. He'd experienced the invasive punishment of one mind pressing down on another from Seras time and time again. It was everything from a minor annoyance to pure hell, depending on the emotions of the punisher. But he'd never thought he'd see it happen to someone else, where he was merely a bystander.

Seras gasped, and at first he didn't realize what was happening. Then, a wave of pain, too strong for her to hold back, ran through their bond like an electric current and lodged behind his left eye, throbbing agonizingly. She wavered where she stood, too shocked to even scream as her face screwed in anguish. Then, like a felled tree she dropped to her knees, hands bracing against her temples as though trying to keep her brain from squishing out of her pores. He heard a strangled whimper escape past her lips and he paled; her reduced state struck a chord deep inside him, resounding back with protective feelings and something akin to love.

"Stop," he muttered, unable to find his voice amidst the shock of seeing his tormentor and guardian brought to her knees by something he had helped awaken. The air thickened and he couldn't breathe, his lungs catching and refusing to operate. Alucard's expression was stony, his eyes narrowed in rage as he loomed over her.

"Foolish childe," he growled, the sound seeming to come from his chest rather than his mouth. "What would you have done with that one soul? Keep it from harm, instead of sacrificing it for your own wellbeing? How many times did I explain it to you, _over_ and _over_ , back in those early days?"

Seras didn't—or couldn't—reply, but a squeak of a thin wail brushed past her lips and fluttered straight to Fulton's heart, a dagger that broke the chains of disbelief holding his shoes to the ground. He rushed at the imposing figure, shoulder braced to tackle him. The impact was hard enough to send a bolt of pain up and down his arm, but Alucard didn't budge. Switching immediately to tactic B, he stood at full height and shouted directly into the vampire's ear.

"I demand you stop this instant; it's an order!" he boomed, the sound echoing around the chamber. It hurt _his_ ears, so he knew that if Alucard's hearing was as sensitive as Seras's, it would at the very least switch his attention away from punishment. To his triumph the ancient vampire winced involuntarily, twisting away from Fulton's body. Seras sighed in relief, slumping down to rest fully on her knees as her hands fell from her head. Fulton left Alucard, running over to her side and bending on one knee to rest a hand on her shoulder. She shook him off after a moment, looking up with eyes that were disappointed rather than happy.

 _You shouldn't have done that,_ she stated firmly. _I can fight my own battles. Don't interfere if you don't know what's going on._

 _I knew exactly what was going on—he was hurting you. That's all I_ _ **needed**_ _to know._ Their gaze met, his unyielding green eyes boring into her stern red ones. Something softened in hers in reaction to his words, and she looked almost gentle before blinking and returning to her usual expression. He turned to Alucard, summoning strength he hadn't used in years to reach out to the bond that he knew was waiting for him. He managed to chisel his way into the elder vampire's head, speaking angrily. _I don't know what sort of relationship you have with Seras, but she's under my protection, first and foremost._ Alucard's face darkened. _I better not see you doing it again._

"As you wish, my master," he replied openly, his voice tight and constrained. Fulton could tell that he'd work tirelessly to jump through any loophole he could get. There was another rumble from upstairs, this time louder and closer. Fulton felt the stone beneath his feet vibrate. Seras clambered to her feet in a way that was graceful, if not nimble. "Police Girl, are my weapons still in this house?"

"Yes, master. I found them first thing; they're in my room." Alucard nodded curtly, and then vanished in a cloud of mist. Seras sighed, rubbing the back of her head and upsetting the fedora. She automatically put it back in its place without really thinking about it, her eyes distant.

"So… 'Police Girl', hmm?" Fulton asked, almost shyly. "Are you… er, I mean…" She arched one eyebrow and he fell silent. She shook her head, sighing again before taking hold of his hand.

"Come along," she ordered, looping her arm through his and holding him close. "We're going upstairs." He gritted his teeth, but the wash of cold power over him was like ice and he couldn't help but gasp as she pulled him through the air and into a shadowy void. He opened his eyes when the sensation of movement ceased, finding that she'd pulled him into the Ammunitions room. He hardly visited there himself, having no need for ammunition other than the handgun he sometimes wore and practiced with.

It was musty and dark, cobwebs littering the ceiling and dust an inch thick on shelves that hadn't been touched in years. The men kept the things they needed at the forefront of the room, so the back of the long, angular space was relatively untouched. This was where Seras headed, kicking over boxes and peering inside at the contents, clearly on the search for something in particular.

Moments later, he heard a triumphant sound as she pulled out a real, honest to goodness _cannon_ from a crate, dusting it off with her sleeve before slinging it over her shoulder in a movement that was clearly habitual. He peered up at it in awe, noting the words _HARKONNEN III_ emblazoned on the side of the barrel along with the 'old' Hellsing crest.

"Three?" he asked in confusion, pointing to the name. Seras chuckled, patting the side of the cannon as though it were an old friend.

"Yes, I'm afraid the others met with bad endings. Luckily, number three seems to be no worse for wear," she said happily. "Probably because none of the humans could pick it up." She looked him over. "Better get _something_. Even a plank from one of these crates." He frowned at her sass before searching the shelves and coming up with a handgun similar to the one he had upstairs. He also found a shotgun and slung it over his back, stuffing the bullets for both in his suit pockets. Seras nodded approvingly before glancing over at the wall. It shifted, dust drifting through the air and making Fulton sneeze.

Alucard appeared from it, dressed just as oddly as Seras in a full red coat and hat. Fulton stared at his pale, mocking face and saw matching glasses resting on the bridge of the long nose. _So this is where Seras gets her strange clothing ideas from… interesting._ Still, Seras's outfit complimented Alucard's in a mystifyingly satisfying way, from the cut of the cloth to the muted color scheme. Alucard smirked at him, taking in the sight of pockets weighed down with ammo and guns hanging off the thin form.

"Well, my master. Are you ready for war?"


	8. Souls

**Author's Note:** Don't worry, my little Impatient Ones. I still love each and every one of you, even if I don't call you collectively as much as I used to.

* * *

There was another rumbling tremor that shook the tiled concrete beneath Fulton's feet; this time, it was accompanied by a chorus of bewildered shouts. Seras twisted around, nearly knocking the side of her cannon into side of the wall, and frowned as she studied the door.

"Come along," she commanded the young man habitually, ignoring Alucard for the moment. "We have to stop her, before anyone gets killed." She strode ahead confidently, but Alucard cut her off with one crimson arm, shoving her back hard enough that she nearly stumbled with the added weight of the _Harkonnen III_. She gaped at him in bemusement before her cheeks colored with a faint shade of anger-induced pink.

"Stay out of this," was the cold order. Fulton glanced at him, but was unable to read his expression. Just like with Seras, the odd glasses made it hard to sense any _real_ emotion behind the calm, stoic face. "A little fool with only one soul shouldn't make herself the center of battle." He didn't move his head, but Fulton felt his gaze rest on Seras with some strange sixth sense. "And such a weak soul, too. I can't fathom why you'd keep something as pathetic as that—"

"He was my _friend_ ," Seras interrupted with an icy whisper. The flush had drained from her face, but it was replaced with a mask of contempt. "I know that doesn't mean anything to someone like _you_ , but to me he is— _was_ —important." She looked away, leaving Fulton to wonder at her self-censure. Was this soul not important to her anymore for some reason? It didn't make any sense…. The two were locked in a stare-off, which Alucard seemed to win. Seras turned away first, mouth set in a thin line.

"Now isn't the time or place," Fulton cut in impatiently. He was graced with two pairs of angry crimson eyes turned in his direction, but managed to hold his own against the fierce double-glare. "Let's take care of that," he added, pointing up to the first floor where the rumbles were still happening at irregular intervals, "and then you two can sort out whatever bad blood you have between you." He strode confidently towards the door, refusing the impulse to look back and make sure that he was being followed. When he opened the door, Seras overtook him and slid gracefully, if not abruptly, across the threshold ahead of him. He ducked to avoid the sensation of a canon colliding with his skull, and then followed her with quiet, careful footsteps.

The shouts of confusion had turned into the sounds of battle, and at first he had no way of knowing how the fight was coming along. Then, as they turned the corner and merged into the main hallway that led from the foyer to the back of the manor, he stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes widened as his mouth dropped open, blindsided at the amount of blood that coated the previously-impeccable wallpaper.

There were smears of it along a painting of Versailles, puddles of it coagulating where it dripped from the ceiling like condensation in an underground cavern, and in the corner…. He was afraid to look, but it was impossible to _not_ look. He felt the blood drain from his face as he recognized a patent issue Hellsing Organization glove. That in itself wouldn't have been bad, except for the clear end of a stump still attached to a hand inside poking out of the opening at the wrist. He marveled for a brief, macabre moment at the cleanliness of the cut, like a scientific model rather than the remains of a man's hand; the white, blood-tinged bone, the cross-section of yellow fat and sinew and muscle, strung together in a neat, perfectly organized way that helped the fingers and their joints move in sync, but… but no more, for now it was permanently separated from its body, lost in a sea of red that was soaking into the brown carpet and leaving a permanent rusty tang in the air….

He shuddered, feeling the bile rise in his throat as he forced himself to look away. Glancing quickly at Seras, he noted with disappointment that both vampires surveyed the scene with detached boredom, paying no attention to the gore painting the hall. Alucard brushed past him, turning the corner at the end of the hall, and Seras nudged Fulton in the small of his back, pushing him along. His polished shoe landed in a pile of blood and he winced at the loud squelch it made. _Damn,_ he thought. _I know that she hates me for being so weak. Still,_ he added consolingly to himself, _every ounce of this blood used to be one of my men…. Surely she can't hate me for that._

"I don't," Seras said absently, looking past him and focusing her attention to the corner Alucard had went around. "It's natural to feel sympathy for the dead; it's a normal human emotion." A strange look crossed her face, but before he could ask her it was gone again, leaving only a soured glint in her eye. "Just don't show it so openly. You give your enemies all the power they need over you when you wince and moan like a child." He huffed, but she only prodded him again and pushed them both down the hall. He tried to pick his way through the bloody splatters, but he felt it drip down into his hair from above and the constant squelching of Seras's boots still set him on edge.

They rounded the corner and he was unceremoniously pushed to the floor. Seras's slim body lay on top of his, her breasts pushing uncomfortably against his back, and then in a split-second she was gone again. It all happened in the span of a blink, his sputtered gasp almost silent compared to the quick volley of gunfire. He looked up, trying to spot Seras amongst the bullets and bodies, but his eyes were drawn instead to a wounded soldier pulling herself up the wall. He ran to help, ducking his head every time a bullet pierced the wall above him. He grabbed her hand, guiding her up and away from the battle.

She turned, and he tried to keep as much shock from his face as he could when he saw the gaping hole in her abdomen, organs quivering precariously in her cavity. She reached down with her free hand to hold them in, leaning heavily on him and staining his suit even more with her fluids. He ignored it, looping his other arm around back carefully and leading her to the hallway. He sat her against the wall, brushing back the sticky hairs from her face.

"Th—" she tried to say, but a pained look crossed her face and she was unable to continue. He shushed her, shaking his head.

"Stay quiet. Conserve your energy, Hannah," he murmured. "I'm going back out to find others." She nodded as best she could before leaning back and closing her eyes, her breath shallow. He moved back out to the foyer, ignoring the battle and now searching for felled soldiers. The first soldier he touched was still warm, but his eyes gazed at the ceiling and saw nothing. Reluctantly, Fulton closed the lids and left him alone. He found another relatively alive, but missing his left arm from the elbow down. He grabbed the beret from the man's head and twisted it, tying a tourniquet the best he could around the stump. It helped to slow the flow somewhat and he lifted the man under his arms, dragging him to the hallway and placing him next to Hannah.

He found half a dozen men still left alive, in various states of injury ranging from mortal wounds to a few scratches and some internal bleeding. He managed to move them all to the hallway before he heard Seras yell out an order. Immediately the men and women still able to move all crowded in the hall behind him, pressing around him. He turned to them questioningly.

"Sir! We've been told to clear the foyer," one said. He held a gaping wound on his arm, but seemed relatively unhurt compared to some of the others. He glanced down at the wounded Fulton had amassed in the hall. "No one has been able to find the doctors," he said with concern. "The back of the west wing has caved in." Fulton nodded; the infirmary was on the west wing. He hoped to God that the infirmary itself hadn't been crushed. There was already too much death today for his tastes. He opened his mouth to answer, but Seras let out a shrill yelp and he turned without thinking. He took off running, slipping once on the bloody floor but managing to regain his footing without falling on his face.

Seras and the vampiress were locked in a standoff. He blinked, staring at the two snarling like wild animals at each other as they battled for the dominant position. Then, before he could properly process what was going on, Seras twisted around and managed to lock the vampiress's hands behind her in what appeared to be an effective hold. Willa bucked, but was unable to break free. She changed her plan and began smashing Seras into the wall behind them. She moved and threw them both into a window, glass raining down and cutting their skin. Seras shook the hair from her eyes and noticed Fulton standing there.

"Shoot! Now!" she ordered, tightening her hold on the writhing woman. "Do as I say!" she screamed when he didn't move. Fulton felt of the handgun and frowned, torn between obeying her and putting a—potentially lethal, considering her current state—blessed bullet through her torso, or… or what? What would happen? _A true Hellsing wouldn't hesitate!_ The voice in his head shouted, though he had no clue whether it was Seras's voice or his own resounding in his mind. Still, it felt as though he was frozen solid and couldn't move.

A bullet whistled through the air and he felt his body seize up as it passed by him. It found home in Willa's stomach and Seras grunted as it hit her as well. He turned his head, disbelieving, and saw Winston standing in the broken threshold. A bloodstained gun, clearly picked up from the ground, was aimed expertly at the pair. His eyes narrowed and he stood at full height, eyes focused on the stunned vampiress. Willa looked down at her stomach, eyes wide and confused, before meeting Winston's stern gaze.

"You have just made an enemy, _mon homme miserable_. I won't forget this," she whispered scornfully. Winston didn't bother with replying, but instead leveled the gun again, this time aiming for her head. Immediately it lowered and his jaw dropped as the female vanished, clothes dropping to the ground as thousands of white mice spilled from the sleeves. Winston gasped in surprise, backing away as the tiny mice swarmed over his boots and out the door, red eyes glowing and tiny claws scrabbling on the tiled floor. Fulton watched with a strange interest until the last mouse tail slithered beyond the busted wood of the doorframe, and then turned to Seras.

She held her stomach, blood spilling over her hands as she cursed quietly. She swallowed hard and then reached out, dipping her hand in some of the blood running down the wall and licking it off her fingers. Licking the residue from her lips, she swallowed and took a deep breath. Repeating the motion a few times, she took her hand away from her abdomen and revealed a deep, but healing scar. He knew from experience that in a few minutes, it too would be gone. She nodded in satisfaction, and then turned her head to glare at Fulton. He met the icy gaze with one of his own, but his resolve began to falter the moment the extent of her anger sunk in.

"Child," she hissed, pointedly averting her gaze as if to prove that he was beneath her notice. He sniffed and ran a hand along his nose, only to make a sound of disgust as the irony tang of blood filled his nostrils. Winston offered him a sympathetic glance, coming over to run his fingers through his stained hair, checking for wounds.

"Are you injured?" he asked softly, but his voice was tight with subdued emotion. "I got here as quickly as I could, but I had no idea… it took so long to figure out what had happened, and then there was a search for those twins as well. They weren't servants there, obviously. And I'm sure you weren't in audience with the queen in that chapel."

"I'm fine. It's not my blood," he explained. "And no… we were tricked, Winston. And it led to the deaths of my soldiers. This cannot— _will not_ —stand. Are the royal family unhurt?" he asked as an afterthought.

"Perfectly well, though shaken that their security was so lax. I tried to explain that even the best guard couldn't stop a willing vampire, but I don't believe that they were convinced. You might try explaining it to them yourself, later," he noted, looking around at the mess. "I'm sure you're tired today."

"Yes, I—" he paused, biting his lip. "It can wait until later. A lot of things can wait until later," he added, staring firmly at Seras. "Right now, I have severely wounded men in that hallway and no way to get to the infirmary, if it even still exists. _They_ take top priority." He turned without another word and strode back to the hall, chest out confidently. The best thing to do with Seras when she was angry was to ignore her completely, refusing to let it show how she affected him. To sulk and show his shame would only make her angrier with him. Winston followed close behind, and after a moment he heard Seras's short, light footsteps following him as well.

The men were still in the hall, the least injured trying to tend to the worse ones the best that they could. Some of them had died during the interim and had been laid out to the side, away from the main action. Fulton noticed sadly that Hannah had been added to this part of the hall as well, though he'd known from the state of her body that there wasn't much help for her. Others were clearly close to dying, their chests barely moving with breath. Seras moved to one, her eyes flickering with a quiet emotion. Fulton remembered seeing them speaking more than once in a hallway, so he assumed that this soldier might have been one of her few acquaintances among the troops. She whispered in his ear and his eyes fluttered open, one arm moving automatically in a weakened salute, but only managing to flop in the air a moment before falling.

"Is there anything to be done?" he asked her quietly, and she shook her head. The soldier offered a halfhearted smile, and she whispered in his ear again. His eyes shifted from her to Fulton, then to Winston before moving back. He seemed to summon his energy before giving the faintest of coughs. When he spoke, it was in the gravelly, barely-there voice of someone at Death's door.

"Will it hurt?" he asked, a gurgle in the back of his throat. Seras shook her head.

"I promise that it won't. Just a little prick, that's all." He nodded.

"Okay." She leaned in and Fulton realized what she was about to do. He looked away, not wanting to watch and not caring if she thought it weak of him. He swallowed and waited until he heard movement before daring to turn his head back. The man was dead, face pale and lifeless, no blood flowing from the shoddy tourniquet on his arm. Seras wiped her mouth with the back of her arm, taking a deep breath before moving to the next soldier, a woman. She whispered in her ear, only to have the woman shake her head almost violently, gloved hands still clutching at a rip in her chest. Seras blinked and then stood, moving silently to the next person.

Fulton watched her move down the hall, speaking to every mortally-wounded soldier. Winston watched as well, but didn't turn his head the way Fulton did every time a man or woman agreed to Seras's whispered words. He only looked on with an expression of solemn resignation. Eventually, she reached the end of the hall and walked back to where they stood. She looked more human-like despite her recent actions; her skin wasn't as pale and she seemed vibrant and young, more like a beautiful woman and less like an ageless vampire. Even her eyes, in their crimson hue, sparkled with a certain life of their own.

"Blood freely given is stronger, more significant, than blood taken by force," she addressed him quietly, and his shoulders slumped in response. Winston cleared his throat and reached for her arm.

"Miss Seras… I feel it's my duty to ask if you're alright as well," he said quickly. "I do apologize for not asking sooner. After all, you're the one that took the most damage." Seras actually managed to blush as he took her hand in his and squeezed it, looking her over.

"I'm fine, only tired. I… I needed more souls, and I haven't had that much to drink in many years. It exhausts me, being so full." She smiled. "Don't worry about me, I'm not the only bloody one here," she pointed out, reaching up to brush some fresh blood from his hair as it continued to drip slowly from the ceiling. He tugged her hand away, cheeks pink from the blonde's touch. Fulton always wondered if Seras was only oblivious to the butler's one-sided crush on her, hoping that she wouldn't just toy with his affections. Despite her coy nature, she didn't seem the type to play the cruel woman. He was considering it when he felt a chill at his side. He looked over to see Alucard standing there.

"Where've you been?" he asked the ancient vampire curiously. He sneered.

"Unlike everyone else, I actually thought of following her to see her resting place, if she had one." He arched one brow imperiously. "If she does have a resting place, it's not on England. She had identical servants waiting for her in a rowboat on the Thames."

"And you didn't strike a blow to kill her?" Fulton countered irritably. "Did it not occur to you to kill her?"

"Before we find a motive? If she's not working alone, I'd like to know. It's impossible for her to have resurrected on her own."

"Why?" Fulton scoffed. "Kill her and we'll find the others later, if there really are any." But Alucard wasn't staring at him anymore, instead looking past to where Seras still stood with Winston. Fulton's glance flitted between Alucard and the pair, astounded at the almost jealous expression there. The ancient vampire's face twisted in annoyance, mouth thin, and then stalked over to yank Seras towards him, using her hat as a convenient handle.

"Come, Police Girl, it's time we start looking around for more information on this," he ordered. Winston's brow furrowed at the unsubtle display of dominance from the newcomer, and then he smoothly grabbed Seras's arm and pulled her back.

"It's far too late to start that now. The sun might have set, but you shouldn't go out right now, not with your weakened state." The aura rolling from Alucard should have sent the butler running for the hills, but Winston ignored it and glared at him over Seras's head. Then again, Fulton considered, hardly anything fazed Winston, and in his eyes Alucard was just another man pushing himself on Seras. _I probably ought to warn him about who Alucard is a bit later…._ Seras caught the thought and managed to hide a smile, despite being slowly pulled into an impromptu game of tug-of-war.

 _You should stop them,_ _ **sir**_ , she said emphatically, and he could almost see the impatience building up in her like air pressurizing in a container. Fulton thought about just turning away and leaving her to deal with it all, but thought better of it when he considered the consequences that might arise from allowing her to flounder beneath two jealous men.

"She'll do neither," he stated commandingly. "Seras, I want to talk with you. In private," he added when he saw Winston and Alucard eyeing him forcefully. "Winston, you have a lot of cleaning to do, don't you?" he asked sarcastically. "At least get the servants to help you. But before that, I want you—you as well, Alucard—to go clear out the west wing as best you can. The doctors and nurses might be trapped behind rubble, or at the worst _beneath_ it. Clean it out, and then see about getting this place fixed back up."

"And don't think about fighting with each other," he said as he moved to grab Seras himself, worming her out of both their grasps. "I want Winston intact from his hair to his toenails," he said firmly. "And don't antagonize him, Winston. Do _try_ to be a civilized Englishman, even if you weren't born on the island." He reached his office door, kicked the broken ceiling tiles away from the front of it, and pushed Seras lightly ahead of him as he worked his way inside.


	9. Wilhelmina

**Author's Note:** In this chapter, I had answered my guest reviews for the original C.e.I. story! I'll do the same now, only at the end where you don't have to scroll through tons of stuff to get to it, hehehe (sheepish head scratch)

* * *

Fulton's office was relatively untouched, despite the chaos outside. Only a few cracked tiles and a light scattering of sheetrock dust gave any indication that something was amiss. Fulton strode across the office, a small cloud rising around his feet as he walked around his desk and sat down in his chair. He brushed off the table with his sleeve, already calling his suit a lost cause. Between the bloodstains and everything else, Winston would probably never be able to clean the mess from his clothes. It was a shame; this was one of his preferred suits, one saved for special occasions (like audiences with royalty, though it never saw the royal family today, and most likely never would again).

Staring down at the streaks left by the arm of his suit on the sheetrock coating, he slowly ran one finger along the edge of his glasses rims, the frames pressing firmly into the skin of his nose. He pursed his lips, leaning one elbow on the desk as he thought before looking up at Seras. She was standing in the middle of the floor, clothing torn to shreds in places, stained with blood and other, more unidentifiable fluids, and covered in dust and grit from the ruined halls. After a moment of silence from him, she slung the Harkonnen III off her shoulder and let it hit the ground, where it crashed with an almighty thud and fell over onto its side. She frowned down at it, as though it were a naughty child instead of a cannon, but let it be. Fulton hadn't realized that she'd even picked it up from where she'd left it, but then again, he had more to be concerned with.

"So," he sighed, running a hand through his hair, the strands matted with God-knew-what. "So, I suppose we ought to get down to business. Starting with who that woman was, and why she was trying to kill me. Other than the obvious reasons, of course," he added quickly, knowing that Seras often liked to give quick, already-apparent answers whenever she attempted to evade questions she didn't want to answer. He looked back down at his desk, waiting for her to answer him. He expected a sharp-tongued, half-sarcastic answer, or even a long-winded lecture about ancient so-and-so and their eternal feuds. He heard her take a few steps, but didn't look up, thinking that she was only moving to take a seat as well.

But to his astonishment, a book flung itself—or _was_ flung—onto the desk, coming to a rest neatly between his elbows. He jerked back a little from instinct, but it didn't frighten him as much as it might have had he not been incredibly exhausted. The cover was black, faded leather, torn at the bottom and frayed on the back of the spine, but still in good shape considering its obvious age. In dull, glittering letters on the front, the title was emblazoned in large, thin Gothic script.

"Dracula?" he asked, giving an insuppressible sort of chuckle at the sight of the book. He opened up the front cover, seeing a small message in the corner. _To my good friend Abraham: thank you for all that you've done for me, both now and in the foreseeable future. Yours, B. Stoker._ "And an original, signed copy at that. This ought to be in the library instead of my office, I think," he muttered to himself, closing it again. "Seras, I thought you told me this book was all hogwash and romantic notions." She didn't answer, so he took it as leave to continue. "I mean, it's a classic, and it's a good read for a stormy winter's night, but all in all…."

"Willa. Wilhelmina." He glanced quickly up to see her take a place in 'her' chair, shoulders sagging. _She's lost too much blood_ , _despite what she…_ _ **took**_ _in the hallways._ he thought with an appraising eye. _I'll have Winston bring her some, after he—_ He looked out the window, where the infirmary wing's roof was clearly sunken. _God, I hope they find everyone alright and only a little shaken._

"Seras," he scolded quietly. "Were you lying when you said that to me all those years ago? Is Dracula real now?" he laughed gently, not wanting to seem too demanding on her after the events of the day. She didn't reply, and he looked back down at the book, prepared to open the page and turn to one of his favorite passages near the end. His hand brushed over the lettering and he blinked at it, something coming to the forefront of his mind. He paused, tilted his head, and then spun the book around in a quick motion.

"Oh." He stared for a moment at the page, and then sighed in exasperation. "My God, I'm such an idiot." Seras only smiled. "A complete and utter idiot! I've been saying his name all evening, for Christ's Sake!" He paused, letting it sink in as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Alucard is Dracula. Alucard—" He looked back at the infirmary, then at Seras. "That," he stated blandly, pointing his thumb at the wing, "is _this_?!" he now pointed down at the book, arching one eyebrow incredulously. " _Really_?"

"It is rather romanticized," Seras admitted with a weak laugh. Fulton rolled his eyes.

"Romanticized it's not the word; it's just bloody made up! I mean, who's going to fall in love with something like tha—?" He tapered off at the look on Seras's face, grew red, and cleared his throat loudly. "Never mind it now, though. You're telling me that vampiress in there was _the_ Mrs. Harker. The one that got bit and did the whole 'you drank my blood, I drink yours' thing." He stared at her. "Well, you did that too, I guess," he added musingly.

"I was mostly-dead; I barely remember anything about it," she snapped in reply. "And yes, that is Mrs. Harker. Or it was. After she died, the Nazis did… things to her. I don't exactly know what, but she came back. We killed her off, for good, but she came back again. And now she's back _again_." Seras tipped the brim of her hat back. "Bitch doesn't know when to quit, honestly," she murmured to herself.

"But-But, Alucard, I mean the Count, he didn't do all the things he does now in the book. So Willa can't, either?"

"Alucard was captured and… well, it's a bit like "The $6 Million Man". Van Helsing and his team of scientists made him better. You could say that, at least." She pointed to the runes on her gloves. "Then, they made it to where he couldn't leave. Then they sealed the powers they'd given him, and made him into a weaponized slave instead of what he used to be."

"A monster." The words slipped out before Fulton could catch them. He opened his mouth to apologize, but Seras gave him a dark, sharp-toothed grin that he knew was meant to wound him.

"Right. Just like me." He locked eyes with her until she looked away, rubbing her nose and sniffing. "In any case, she came back after Alucard, when she could find him." It took him a moment to realize that she'd turned the conversation back to the vampiress that was once a symbol of Victorian purity. "But after the Nazis, she was messed up in the head. She tried to kill the Hellsings, to release Alucard's power. I don't know if she thought that would change his allegiance to her, or if she only wanted to cause a little mayhem. But she failed, time and again. And _again_ ," she added, looking pointedly at Fulton. "Today. But you see how strong she's becoming. The years are only adding to her strength, and her insanity. The last time, we couldn't save the entire family. It was a disaster of unspeakable proportions."

"Right." Fulton slumped in the chair, tapping his nails on the desk as he thought. "We should get this nipped in the bud, but if she's fled overseas… I'll put out a BOLO for her, or any unusual vampiric activity, to the other Hellsing branches. We'll have to pull some of their troops to Headquarters until we can get new ones trained, so they'll be stretched thin. I think we can manage, though."

"Do as you please," Seras said calmly. "But if I were you, I wouldn't be offering her an invitation to come back again. If she finds Hellsing operatives trailing her…." she left the rest of the sentence unspoken.

"I'll think of something," he promised, waving her concerns away. "Tell me…I almost don't want to ask it," he corrected. "I'll just—"

"What is it?" He looked up at her, meeting her eyes as he swallowed.

"Willa… Wilhelmina, or whatever her name might be… is she partly responsible for your being locked away?" He nodded his head towards the ceiling. "In the attic, that is. You said 'a disaster of unspeakable proportions'. I was just curious, was all." She stared at him for a long time, longer than he was comfortable with.

"Yes." The answer took him completely by surprise; he thought she wouldn't admit to anything. He gaped as she stood, her patience for his queries clearly at an end. "I'm going to bed earlier than usual tonight, Sir. I don't think you'll write me up for this one," she laughed hollowly.

"No, no—go." Fulton waved her on. "Sleep well, and we'll start hauling ass tomorrow. I think everyone deserves a night off tonight."

"Very well. Good night, and good day, then." She turned to leave.

"I'll have Winston bring you some more blood before—" But she was gone in a whirl of shadow, casting up one final dust cloud before leaving completely. He sat back in his chair, listening to the muffled, almost quiet sounds of men digging out the infirmary and carrying for the wounded, and closed his eyes.

* * *

"Thank you for letting me know about the infirmary so promptly; I'm glad no one was seriously hurt." Fulton pulled back the bedsheets to the large bed in the main bedroom, where he'd moved sometime after turning sixteen. "It's a godsend, compared to everything else that's happened tonight."

"Agreed, Sir." The young man leaned down to pick something off the floor before turning to the door.

"I'm sorry Winston, but I'm afraid my clothes are ruined." Dressed snugly in his pajamas, he handed the retainer the soggy bundle that used to be a pristine suit.

"Mine looks no better!" Winston admitted, looking down at his own dirty clothing. "I'll have another one ordered in this color," he said, scrutinizing the bundle. "Don't worry about it."

"And please… check on Seras tonight before you turn in. I know she probably won't eat anything if you give it to her, and she might not even come out of her coffin, but at least go check on her." Fulton felt himself blush, looking down at his socked feet as he crossed his arms. "I do worry about her every now and then."

"It's alright, Sir. I know how you feel; I'm concerned about Miss Seras as well." A warm, friendly hand landed on his shoulder and squeezed it comfortingly. "She looks so delicate and small, but she could yank my spine out from between my teeth, actually," he laughed somewhat nervously. "She's always struck me as the type of person who likes to take care of herself."

"I know. But even those sorts of people need to have someone looking after them, too." Winston smiled and inclined his head, conceding.

"Once again: agreed, Sir. I'll check on her after I dispose of these… hazardous wastes," he said uncomfortably, looking down at the stains. "I probably should call a hazmat team tomorrow morning, now that I think about it."

"Do what you must," Fulton answered. "I'll find room in the budget somehow. This will set us back ten years on our finances, anyway." The two men chuckled, knowing the heir's words to be true, if not slightly exaggerated.

"And… about the other one," Winston began unsurely, his nose wrinkling. "Where should I be keeping him?" Fulton blanched; he hadn't actually thought of where Alucard might be staying yet. He wondered where he had frequented before being locked away in the basement.

"Um, well, I suppose he must have a preference," Fulton said, scratching his (now clean) hair. "I'll ask him tomorrow when he's awake and about. He can sleep wherever he wants to tonight, so long as he's not bothering anyone or anything. You can ask if he wants something to eat, if you'd like." The look on Winston's face suggested that it'd be the farthest thing from what he'd _like_ to do the ancient vampire, but he schooled his frown back into a more neutral expression and bowed.

"Yes, Sir. I'll be off, then. Sleep well."

"Goodnight, Winston. Get some rest yourself."

"Of course, Sir. Of course."

* * *

 **¡Guest Reviews, in order of oldest to newest!**

 **Sasha88:** I hope the other chapters lived up to your enjoyment of the first one!

 **Zkrazy1:** I'm glad you love the original version! I hope that this one continues to be a complete and utter not-disappointment!

 **GUEST WITH GUSTO:** While I wouldn't say perfection, I agree that it's nice to be able to rewrite stories and see how I've evolved as a writer, as well as in my knowledge of the Hellsing fandom. I'm glad you enjoy it, though!

 **GUES_T:** Hope I never keep you waiting TOO long!

 **Sasha88:** I feel like I'm writing a new fanfic, with all the crud I'm throwing in that I left out of the first write.

 **Sasha88:** I'll try to keep it coming. I'll try.

 **GUEST(yay!):** I've never personally been in super-isolated confinement, so I can't say from personal experience. But Seras has a lot going on with her in this fic; I'm afraid I wasn't very nice to her at all. Poor kid just can't get a break, but thankfully Fulton is providing a bit of relief and protection that she's needed for some time, though she'd never admit it aloud.

 **GUEST#687** : I'm glad I'm not the only one that devours stories in one go! I'm also flattered that you liked my story enough to read it through without stopping!

 **THINKING_GUEST** : I adore putting philosophical discussions and ideas in my stories ( _winces at Ciudat Atragerea_ ) so I'm glad that I have readers that love to think! I'm also glad that you have questions: the best students are the ones with them! Hopefully, they'll be wrapped up for you and in a better format than the original story that just slapdashed everything together horribly with no resolve.

 **CANDYMAN_GUEST** : I hope you mean a Chocolate Orange bar. Or perhaps a Mars bar? Cinnamon buns? ( _laughing nervously_ ) Cherry Cordials?

 **AWESOME_GUEST** : I like how Alucard's all casual and shit too! That's my aesthetic! Also, it's probably his!

 **Zombie toast** : *plays party music* oh yeah!

 **AWESOME_GUEST2** : Awesomeness, right back at ya.


	10. First Conversations

_Despite what resentments you may hold, your new human lover is even more pathetic than the last._ Seras bristled, tongue forced into her cheek in an effort to keep from smarting off. She had grown used to having her way or the high way for many years now, but the awakened vampire was still her master. Until that changed, she knew that she would have to watched what she said around him. Still… his remarks were unprecedented, and she couldn't let them bounce off her the way that she should've.

 _Don't talk about Winston like that. He's not my lover, so there's no reason for you to be jealous of him._ There was an unnecessary forced sarcasm in the mental retort, which she ought to have left out. But she just couldn't help herself. _I'll find myself on the ground again if I don't watch my tone_ , she added to herself, quietly enough that he couldn't have heard her unless he forced himself into her mind.

 _Jealous? My, we've gotten narcissistic, haven't we?_ Her hands balled into fists and she stopped walking, staring at the wall until she was able to get herself under control. He laughed coldly. _Don't be so hasty to jump to conclusions, Police Girl. I'm hardly jealous. Still, I don't enjoy watching that human fawn over you. Even someone as heartless as me still has a stomach to turn, and that sort of behavior is simply nauseating._

 _He's harmless. If you don't like it, then don't watch._ She sniffed, tossing her head as she continued her walk. She was technically surveying the damage to the home after the wake of the… skirmish. It wasn't really a battle, per say—she'd seen true warfare, and this was nowhere near the destruction that true war caused. But if she was completely honest with herself, she was also trying to get away from the basement for as long as she could. There was an added chill down there now that Alucard had been awakened, and she wasn't sure if she really enjoyed the familiar feeling or not. _I happen to like him._

 _And_ _ **I**_ _do not._ There was the all too memorable obstinacy that peppered every unspoken order he'd ever given her. His true meaning was clear, though masked in the guise of familiarity and false friendliness. He wanted her to cut ties with the butler, though she had no intention of doing so. She wondered if he knew exactly how jealous he sounded when he spoke like that, all male pride and no sense whatsoever. There was no reason that she couldn't be friends with Winston and still cater to her master's changeable whims. Hell, she'd done it with….

 _You never raised such a fuss with Walter. It does make one wonder,_ she snapped back, though in the same easygoing voice that he was using with her. _Winston_ _ **is**_ _a lot younger than Walter was when I knew him._ She felt a wave of irritation zap through his mind like an electric current, quick and jarring. _Aha, I've hit a nerve_ , she thought triumphantly.

 _This has nothing to do with Walter, little girl._ She almost laughed at the anger simmering in his voice, which had gone low in her head. He hadn't called her 'little girl' before; that was a new one. Still, she knew better than to let even a giggle escape. _If that insolent little fuck is your beau, I insist that you tell me._

 _I don't have to tell you anything,_ she replied snippily. A burning pain shot through her skull and she winced, but it didn't bring her to her knees the way the last one had. She had almost been ready for it, knowing how her cheek used to infuriate him. Not much had changed, it seemed.

 _You will do well to remember your place, Seras Victoria._ Her name was a true warning, imploring her to heed the emotion still burning at the back of her skull. He was full and content after the battle, but his mercy wouldn't extend for very much longer.

 _Yes,_ _ **master**_ _._ She cut him off, rolling her eyes as her lips tightened into a thin line. She wasn't quite ready to give up her position on the pecking order, but for now it might be better to let him have the last word. After all, the fight with the vampiress had only proven that she wasn't at her fullest potential. _Perhaps it's time to train regularly again…._

* * *

"I suppose you'll be wanting… that is, I'm sure that—what I mean to say is," Fulton tried a third time, clearing his throat, "will you be staying in the basement?" He eyed the crimson-clad vampire eerily as he spoke, taking in the odd wardrobe. He was still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that this bony, pale… _thing_ was the great and fearsome Dracula, king of vampires. Seras was at least three times more threatening than him! Still, it might have only been that he knew Seras far longer than he knew _this_ one. Either way, he had no real idea about what he was getting himself into.

"My old chambers will more than suffice," came the answer, smooth and silky as the night air itself. Then, a smirk etched itself across the otherwise stoic face, a sight that made the skin on Fulton's back crawl uncomfortably. "Of course, if personal preferences are being taken into account, you're more than welcome to put me in the Police Girl's room." Fulton was confused for a moment before remembering that 'Police Girl' referred to Seras. He felt his cheeks flush and he laughed nervously, rubbing his arm and trying not to pluck at his sleeve in the process.

"I'm almost certain that she wouldn't enjoy that as much as you would," he confessed. "And… er, anyway, don't you have your own coffin?" He was thinking more along the lines of trying to fit two full-sized coffins into Seras's crowded room, but the sight of the widening grin on the vampire's face made him realize the other implications of his words. If it were possible, his face reddened even more as a hot wash of embarrassment ran down his spine. Thankfully, the woman herself saved him an even more humiliating answer.

" _You've got your own coffin! Bug off!"_ rang out clearly and forcefully in Fulton's mind, and judging by the twitch of the male vampire's eye, in his as well. Then, as quickly as it had been opened, the mental door was slammed shut again in a very implicative way. This had no effect on Alucard, other than a small chuckle escaping the vampire's lips. Fulton sighed and rubbed his temples, wondering if every night would be this way from now on. It was enough to give him ulcers.

There was a polite, brisk knock at the office door and Winston slid in after a moment, offering a genial bow in Fulton's direction, and a wary glare in Alucard's. When he had his master's attention, he spoke in his usual cheery tone, though his eyes kept flitting over to Alucard as if expecting the man to do something unexpected and dangerous.

"The cook would like me to inform you that tea is ready, and today's fare will be fresh cream puffs, as you ordered," he announced. "They're ready at your leisure."

"Thank you, Winston. Have it set up in the library for me, please."

"Of course, sir." He bit his lip, hesitating a moment before adding, "Miss Victoria said earlier that she would be at the range all evening, so I daresay that _her_ tea will remain in the freezer." Fulton blinked in surprise; Seras usually didn't go to the shooting range unless she was working with new troops.

"That's odd, but… if that's what she wants," he shrugged, waving a hand dismissively. "Let it stay in the freezer until she comes back." Winston nodded and, bowing quickly once more, slid back through the cracked door and shut it behind him with a deft _click._ Fulton looked after him before turning back to Alucard.

"Now then," he said, getting back to the conversation. "You'll be staying in your own chambers. I'll have that noted. And, one more thing," he said as he saw Alucard turn and become semi-translucent. The body solidified again and one brow arched imperiously. "About your behavior…" He fought back another round of embarrassment as that annoying, creepy grin returned once more.

"Yes?" Fulton took a deep breath before speaking in a rush.

"I don't like the way that you treat Seras, personally. She raised me, you know, and so I hold her in high regard. Higher regard than I hold you, only because I haven't gotten to know you or what you do, so in my opinion she's almost more important. In any case, I don't play favorites, but I do demand that you think before you act rashly towards her. You caught me off guard in the basement when you punished her, but I won't be so lenient next time. I can punish you too, you know," he faltered, seeing the increasingly sour expression on the vampire's face. "D-don't tempt me. I'm telling you this while she isn't around… for reasons of my own…."

"You'd do well to remember her advice, boy. Don't meddle in affairs which have been going on long before you ever existed," Alucard warned icily. Fulton felt a sliver of fear, but above that he felt sheer exasperation.

"Now, listen here—" he started, finger in the air. He wasn't about to let one of his servants boss him around like that, unless it was Seras. And this servant, despite being Nosferatu, most certainly _wasn't_ Seras. "Don't try to start trouble with me. I'm only being nice right now because you've just been woken and you don't know all the rules yet," he bluffed. "Keep this up, and I'll… I'll make sure that you and Seras stay on opposite sides of the globe," he finished grandly, in his most imperative voice.

Alucard's shoulders ducked and he had the sudden thought of a dog's ears falling back in an aggressive stance. Suddenly, he found himself nose to nose with the vampire, the scent of blood and soil crowding his brain. He leaned back, more out of automatic surprise than fear or submissiveness, mouth falling open in shock.

"Do not think of telling me what I may and may not do to my servant," Alucard growled softly, too soft for anyone outside the office to hear if they were listening, but loud enough that Fulton heard every word, and even felt it rumbling in his own chest. He would have even let the statement go, if Alucard hadn't said 'my servant' the way someone might say 'my dog'. His chest puffed up and he tried to straighten up, stopping only when his nose literally brushed the tip of the other man's.

"I am your master, so she's my servant before she's ever yours. I can go over your head," he stated boldly. _Take that_ , he added, but with enough mental shields up that no one but himself heard. "And as your master, I'm ordering you to get out of face, and… get out of my sight," he continued. "Go back to your chambers. I'm sure you've got a lot of cleaning up in there to do, after so many years." The crimson eyes narrowed in anger, but the body became incorporeal mist that left a stale odor in the room, but otherwise vanished without protest.

He fought the urge to bask in the power that came with ordering a very powerful creature around and winning what felt like a large battle, though he was sure that Alucard wouldn't even think twice about it and wouldn't follow any order from him unless it was explicitly laid out in the barest terms with no loopholes to shimmy through. He ran a hand through his hair and scratched his scalp, leaning against the desk as he thought over what had just transpired. _It wasn't really the way I wanted that conversation to go, even if I_ _ **did**_ _win._ He looked at the work still piled up on the desk before turning and walking out of the office and towards the tea waiting for him in the library. _Still, I suppose it could have always been worse._

* * *

"In the end, Winston's estimated that it'll take about three months total to rebuild what was destroyed." Fulton sipped his tea and looked over at Seras, who'd showed up out of the blue almost _reeking_ of gunpowder and nature. Her hair was mussed, her hat and glasses missing; she reclined on a couch near him with wind-chaffed cheeks and eyes brightened slightly by her exercise.

"When it's done, it would be only proper to hold a ceremony to show it off. Especially if you make it up to be better than it already was," Seras pointed out.

"No, no _ceremonies_ ," he whined, though it was directed more to the teacup than to her. "I despise them, Seras. You know that."

"I'm thinking ballroom charity gala, or at the very least a dinner soiree for the Round Table," she continued in tones of delightful cruelty. "Something to _really_ make them second-guess our budget." Fulton sighed.

"Must we? Really?" He stirred the cooling liquid with his spoon, pouting. Thinking of something, he brightened. "We can't. Winston and Alucard would argue over who would be your partner and tear up the place. We'd have to make it up all over again."

"I'll be _your_ partner," she announced blithely, crossing her legs. Her boot danced in the air to its own rhythm. "Problem solved." His shoulders slumped as he chewed his lip, trying to think of any other reason they couldn't have a ball. He couldn't think of any off the top of his head, and by the time he managed to come up with some excuse about clothing it had already been too long and the topic would be awkward to drag up again.

"I'll have to send Winston out after information," he spoke, breaking the silence. "Which means you'll be on top mission duty for a while. I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all," she answered. "I really need the extra practice," she added cryptically. He waited for her to explain, but she let the silence grow again, her mind clearly on other matters. He took another sip of his tea.

"Do you with that we had never woke Alucard?" he asked suddenly, the question springing from his mouth before he could think about it.

"What?" she snapped, head turning to look fully at him. He felt sheepish, but continued nonetheless.

"I mean… he almost seems to be more trouble than he's worth," he laughed uneasily. "I was just sitting here thinking that—well, I mean especially when it comes to you—he's a bit of a handful." She stared steadily at him, eyes locked on his changing expression.

"Of course I don't wish that. I'm happy that he's awake again. He's my master; that's what I've wanted for all these years." It was an open enough confession, but there was just something in the way that she said it; it put him on edge. It didn't sound _right_.

"Do you really mean that?" he replied, in his softest voice. Again her unblinking eyes took in his face, scarlet gaze searching for something there. After a moment she twisted off the sofa and stood.

"I'm going to get something to eat," she declared, voice somber. She walked out of the room without looking at him again, without even saying anything akin to her usual 'good day'. He sighed again, staring at the space that she vacated, more bewildered than ever.


	11. Of Galas and Gravestones

" _There_ you are, Sir Hellsing."

Fulton bit back a sigh, not bothering to look up from his current task of adjusting the tight cuffs that had been biting into his wrists all night. Even though it had been muffled by the general noise of the crowd that was gathered in the manor's newly refurbished and (though the guests didn't realize it) rebuilt ballroom, he could still pick out the owner of the voice without a problem. He was fairly certain he could have done so in a crowd of London's loudest civilians, if only for the fact that only one voice could ever _drip_ with presumptuous sarcasm, even when greeting someone.

"Miss Walsh," he muttered, if only to be polite. To his relief, she'd grown out of the water balloon stage sometime during their teens, though she still enjoyed tormenting him to no end with her words. "I'm… glad you're well," he added, trying to choose something that was neither a lie nor completely rude. There was a soft humph and he raised his head to see her glaring at him with her usual prissy attitude, arms crossed as she examined his new suit. She'd grown up well—that's what Winston called it, anyway—though there was still a hint of baby fat around her cheeks and she'd never quite lost the childish smattering of freckles on her nose.

"Naturally," she retorted after a moment, tossing her curls and twisting her lips into a sly grin. "I was surprised to hear that you had to bring your own _sister_ along as a date," she teased. Fulton glanced over to where Seras stood, talking easily with the retired Sir Iron's, his newly appointed son standing beside him. "You honestly couldn't get anyone else to go with you? Well… maybe I'm not so surprised, after all," she giggled mockingly.

"And who brought you?" he snapped, cheeks flushing. It wasn't his fault that Seras had insisted to everyone that he was her escort! He nearly blurted out that she wasn't really his sister and even if he _had_ wanted to bring a girl, it wouldn't have been her; he couldn't say that, though. He knew it would sound preposterous to the young woman. For all she—and a good deal of the other well-to-do socialites that littered the ballroom floor—knew, Seras was, had been, and would always be Fulton's sister, come back from abroad to help him after the death of his parents. If anyone second guessed the odd servant-esque relationship between them, they never said anything about it.

"I came alone," she replied proudly. "No one here is good enough for me, honestly. I am in a league of my own," she said happily, fluffing her hair again. Fulton snorted with barely suppressed laughter and it was her cheeks that grew red, lips pursing. "What's that supposed to mean?! _You_ couldn't hold a candle to me, much less any of these other plebian toads!" she hissed, using one of her father's favorite insults as she waved her hand dismissively.

"I wouldn't have asked you even if I had a choice." He wiped the edges of his eyes, still snickering to himself. "After all, I don't want to drag you down any further than you already are." She scowled at him, and he heard the sound of her foot tapping beneath the heavy folds of her gown.

"You mark my words, Fulton Hellsing—one of these days, a beautiful girl is going to catch your eye, and she's going to be so far above you that the most you can hope to do is touch the edge of her shoe, and when _that_ happens, I'm going to laugh and laugh, and then I'll tell you that I told y—who's _that_?!" she broke off her own (mostly ignored) monologue, pointing past him. He felt an odd sense of déjà vu, but obediently turned to see that she'd singled out Alucard from his position in the shadows. He hadn't wanted to come, but Fulton couldn't help but feel a little cruel delight at ordering him to be there as a 'guard'. He hoped it was some sort of residual impishness in his genes, and not the beginning of his eventual metamorphosis into a man with a personality that resembled Seras's a little too much.

"That's Alucard. He's—er, he's one of my newer employees," Fulton half-fibbed, scratching his chin. Despite her age, Miss Walsh still didn't know about Seras's true nature, and he doubted it would benefit for her to learn about vampires at all. After all, one of her brothers, or at the most her cousin, would probably take the Round Table seat after her father's retirement. Then again, he could see her taking the seat for herself, just to spite him. He frowned at the thought and almost missed her next words.

"He's handsome! Wow, that's not usually my type, but he's still so handsome!" Miss Walsh gushed, hands clasped beneath her chin as she hid behind Fulton and peered at Alucard. The ancient vampire wasn't even looking in their direction, so there was no need for her to hide in the first place, but she followed her older peer like a shadow as he tried to move out of the way.

"I think he's a little old for you," Fulton grumbled, pushing her hands off his shoulders. If anything, _she_ was more like a sister to him than Seras was. Always toying and arguing with him, only to hang off him like a leech in the next moment; it was almost unbearable, and it made him oddly happy to have been an only child. "I mean, he looks about your father's age, doesn't he?" Alucard was _much_ older than his forties, but she needn't know that.

"Of course he's too old for me, dummy!" she scoffed, punching his arm. He rubbed it and wondered if Seras would get angry at him if he reverted to his childhood days and pushed her into the buffet table in retaliation. It would be worth it to see escargot and caprese salad lodged in her beloved hair. "But there's nothing stopping me from admiring him from across the room." And admire she did, keeping her eyes on him and oblivious to Fulton's devious thoughts.

"Anyway, Papa and Mama had bid me come and thank you for inviting us to this charity thing, so whatever." She eyed Alucard one last time before her eyes flitted back to Fulton. "I'm going to go wrestle Penwood from under Lilliana Summer's fat nose and force him to dance with me. Of all the boys here, he's the closest to being in my league." With that, she flounced away to where the pair stood and grabbed the 'boy's' hand, making him blush furiously while poor Lilliana gasped in shock. Fulton thought about going to help her, but the hair on the back of his neck rose and he turned to see Seras glide up with her usual silent grace.

"Sister," he drawled sarcastically, taking her hand. Even with both of them wearing gloves, he could still feel the corpse-like chill coming from her palm. He released it after a moment, rubbing his hand against his pants leg to dispel the cold. She arched a brow at him knowingly, but then sighed almost inaudibly as Winston came towards them. "Winston, everything alright?" Fulton interceded as he came close, stepping in front of Seras instinctively. He could tell that something was bothering her, though he'd been so wrapped up in the night's so-called charity event that he hadn't paid much attention to her. Winston stopped short, but smoothed his proverbial ruffled feathers and smiled charmingly at his employer.

"Everything's perfect, sir," he assured him, bowing from the waist. "Don't fret that I was coming for you," he added. "I was merely going to give Miss Victoria the chance to finish what she was about to tell me earlier, before we were… interrupted." A strange gleam lit his eye. "Now, if you please, Miss Victoria," he said genially, leaning around Fulton. The young man obediently stepped back and allowed Seras to be drawn into their conversation.

"I'm afraid you'll have to remind me what we were talking about, Winston," she answered with a forced smile. "I'm not sure where we left off at." The butler opened his mouth to speak, but a shadow fell over all three of them. Fulton smiled grimly and turned to allow the newcomer into the party as well.

"Police Girl, you can hardly guard the perimeter when you're standing about in this fashion," Alucard noted coldly. Something passed between them and Seras returned his icy gaze with one of her own.

"Well, I suppose that I—"

"It's not her job to be guarding the perimeter," Winston cut in. "That's what we hire men for. Now, Miss Victoria, where were we?"

"The Police Girl's job is the same as my own, _human_. Is that not right, my master?" Alucard sneered, effectively paying back the heir's mischievous orders to be at the ball tenfold by putting him on the spot.

"Erm, I—well," Fulton hesitated, looking helplessly at the men before defaulting to silently imploring Seras for help. He was startled to see she was doing almost the same thing, her scarlet irises boring into his forehead unblinkingly as she stood between the two taller figures.

"Of course Miss Victoria is charged with keeping the manor safe, but tonight she's being _escorted_ ," Winston enunciated forcefully. His voice hung on the 's', air escaping between his clenched teeth. "The perimeter is none of her business."

"I'm beginning to tire of your constant babbling," Alucard snarled quietly in reply, stepping forward to size up the butler, whose body language suggested that he'd accept whatever battle the vampire threw at him. "I think it's high time that I teach you humans a lesson that you've seem to forgotten over the years." Seras's eyes widened even further and she even went so far as to clear her throat. Fulton's shoulders slumped as he realized that she was going to be leaving this to him to sort out. He knew that it was his job as head of the household, but it was just so much easier if _she_ did it instead….

"Winston, I think Mrs. Perivale is waving for you. You ought to go over there before that handkerchief flies out of her hand. As for you," he faced Alucard, "Seras has her orders for the night, so you just keep to yours. Remember what we talked about before," he added under his breath. "Who stands at the top of the pecking order here?" Winston looked as though he was about to ask what Fulton meant, but the heir didn't allow him to take advantage of the temporary pause. "Well? Get at it!" he ordered in what he hoped sounded like a commanding voice. Alucard turned on his heel and strode back towards his previous spot, the crowd parting for him uneasily. Winston managed to look pitifully at Seras before offering a sad smile as he went to attend to Mrs. Perivale.

"You've really got to get a handle on them," Fulton remarked to Seras after making sure that the two had followed his orders. "I mean, I always knew that Winston would be a work-shirker when it came to you, but I'm starting to think that Alucard might do the same. Perhaps I just ought to lock him back up," he joked, but Seras glared so fiercely at him that he swallowed his next sentence.

"Don't even talk about that," she warned, eyes narrowed. He adjusted his jacket and allowed to her to see him rolling his eyes at her overreaction. "You have no idea what you meant."

"I know what I meant," he replied, somewhat irritably. "I meant that he's going back in that box in the dungeon and you're going to… to India or someplace. Maybe then we can all get some proper work done around here," he complained, as though he actually cared about the work waiting on his desk. He was as much of a shirker as the rest of them, but at least it wasn't because he was fawning over the manor's bustiest blonde.

"You're one to talk," she countered shrewdly, picking up on his mental self-depreciation. "And _I_ happen to do my work around here. I can't help it that everyone else is incompetent."

"Your master? Incompetent?" Fulton repeated with a laugh. "Before he woke up, you said he was the best vampire that ever was. No one could say a word otherwise about it. But he's awake for three months and all of a sudden he's an incompetent male that can't hold a candle to you in terms of workload."

"I never said—" Seras started, before clicking her tongue and watching him out of the corner of her eye, a smile tugging at her lips as she realized he was teasing her. "As you say, sir. He's an incompetent fool, as are all the men that walk through this house. Yourself included."

"Hey!"

* * *

In the weeks following the charity gala that was really a 'we finished reconstruction, let's brag about it to everyone' event, the whole manor stayed in a semi-permanent state of busy turmoil. Winston had been traveling around London and the surrounding areas in order to find more about Wilhelmina, trace how she'd gotten into the country, and how she'd managed to worm her way into the palace itself. In his absence, things just didn't run as smoothly as everyone was used to; the place began to degrade into an unorganized chaos that only managed to stay afloat because Seras directed enough during the night to keep the wheels of the Hellsing machine turning, if not oiled.

When Winston returned with nothing to show for his efforts, Fulton sent him at Seras's direction to gather intel on the Millennium Blitz. The Last Battalion was, according to her, the last people known to be in charge of what had once been Mina Harker's corpse. This search proved more fruitful, and the butler managed to come home with stacks of research reports, photographs, profile dossiers, and—strangely enough—a forgotten autograph of Han Solo from the official Los Angeles Star Wars Fan Association.

Meanwhile, Seras was in charge of training new soldiers to replace those sadly lost in the skirmish. She always took these assignments with personal pleasure, mainly because it gave her a chance to scare the living daylights out of groups of unsuspecting men and women pulled from Britain's finest military and police units. While she worked on 'molding them to fit her ideals', Alucard was thrust into the now-vacant spot of bodyguard. He had taken to ignoring Fulton even at the best of times, but this was much easier than arguing with him constantly.

After being forced into conversation on at least one occasion, Fulton found that behind the cold, mocking exterior lay… a cold, mocking man. But he was also very knowledgeable about many things, including (but not limited to) weapons, England's history, clockwork, and Turkish custom. It was interesting, in its own way, though unlike with Seras Fulton never felt the urge to 'pick his brains', as it were. It was odd to have them both in his head, and to see the difference. Seras's mind was distinctly occupied by no less than three things all at once, some of them slipping between the mental barriers and others staying hidden, depending on her levels of concentration. Alucard's mind _never_ slipped, always remaining a calm, even buzz in the back of Fulton's own: hidden, yet undeniably there.

When Winston returned permanently to the manor, Fulton made sure that he was busy enough to keep from butting heads with Alucard. Thankfully, each pretended that the other simply didn't exist, unless Seras was involved. Then, they were unfortunately all too aware of the other, and to his chagrin Fulton was left to deal with them. Seras solidly refused to set a foot in one direction or the other, always remaining the neutral party, if not the unwilling victim of both their attentions. She often found excuses to stay with Fulton as much as possible, keeping a good distance between everyone.

In the end, things quieted down as one year rolled past, and winter melted into a spring that burst into full color mid-March. Peace reigned and, despite a few vampire attacks in Wales and a close call with a banshee that February, things were peachy. Wilhelmina had vanished into thin air, becoming little more than a thought at the back of Fulton's mind as he poured over the information Winston had continued to find for him all the winter long.

He had begun drawing parallels between the Hellsing journal and the articles of the Blitz, as well as first-hand accounts that had been collected after the rebuild. Sometimes he managed to wrangle Seras into clarifying these accounts with what had _really_ happened, counting on the fact that news articles weren't to be trusted and the age-old vampire adage that a humans eyes always lied to them. He made a timeline, he tracked the Nazis to South America, then back to Germany, he took notes, he called up his contacts in the Vatican, he pulled records that dated back centuries, all in an effort to find out more about what he was up against. It was nearly overwhelming, the amount of information that added up to so much, and yet so little.

"I think that I've managed to figure out her servants, at least," he told Seras one balmy April evening. The windows were open, the breeze blowing the curtains and Seras seated behind him on the casement. He swiveled his desk chair, holding up an ancient, yellowed article about voodoo. "They're sort of like these zombie people, see? I think they're like Ghouls, only a bit smarter and they've got enough free will to get what they need done without the vampire checking after them twenty-four-seven." He pulled another page from the pile on his desk. "This letter from a Vatican cardinal to an officer says that the Nazis were trying to experiment with their… chips, I guess?" He flipped through the letter. "Transmitters, he calls it. They were making vampires, but wanted to see if modifying the vampire would modify the Ghoul, as well."

"Ghouls are bad enough as they are, always moaning on and on." Seras was staring up at the moon, but he knew she had been listening. She sighed. "Even all these years later, that idiotic major keeps popping his head up from beyond the grave. I should have known that putting a bullet through his skull wasn't enough to keep him down."

"You killed him?" Fulton dug through the papers and found the picture he was looking for. The man looked almost benign with his flabby cheeks and meekly combed hair. But the thought went away every time he looked at the eyes, flashing with a yellow tint behind the thick glasses. The eyes weren't cold like Alucard's, or mocking like Seras's could be. They were… nothing. Devoid of every feeling other than a glimmer of light that suggested zealousness of the highest passion. He wasn't sure what the man… the Major, as the reports called him, was so passionate _about_. Nothing had really been recorded about him, other than his actions the night of the blitz. It was as if no one had really cared to unearth the truth, though at the time, they probably _did_ have more important things to worry about.

"No. Your ancestor put the bullet in his head while I watched." Fulton's nose wrinkled in distaste as he threw the Major's picture back onto the desk. The eerily calm smile was now directed at the ceiling. "Something wrong, sir?" Seras asked calmly, eyes catching the moonlight like an animal's in the dark.

"We don't have any Ghouls of our own to study, so we can't make this a valid assumption yet," he sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose before polishing his glasses. "On another note, there are a few mentions of a Doctor digging up corpses, Miss Wilhelmina's presumed to be among them. What he did to them is anyone's guess. Everything that the Nazis owned, all their blueprints and plans, burned with them."

"Yes, we made sure of that," Seras said with a nod. "It would have been pointless to let any shred of evidence survive as fodder for the tabloids and conspiracy websites. Or so we thought at the time." She turned her glance back to the window as an owl swooped across the sky. "These corpses, as well as that of Harker… that's where the DNA for the FREAK chip came from. They had to build from the bare bones."

"But the design… it was flawed, wasn't it?" Fulton ran his fingers over a manila envelope. Stapled to the front was a polaroid of the chip in question. Even in the shadowy office, he could see the black Nazi swastika before any other detail.

"Undoubtedly," Seras replied, but didn't explain further. Fulton sighed again, opening another folder filled with the ID cards and profiles of the Hellsing employees that died in the attack. Among them were an entire fleet of mercenary soldiers—only two had survived the attack out of them all. He tapped the papers into shape and glanced to make sure Seras wasn't watching before turning them up to gaze at the picture at the bottom. It was scribbled all over in German, most of the faces either written on or crossed out in red marker. Only one face had a large circle around it—the target. It was Seras, dressed in an unfamiliar uniform and smiling happily as she held up a gun. Nothing about it was entirely special; he was able to see all the faces in the ID sections of their death reports.

But Seras's expression was what had caught him off guard when he'd first come across the picture. She looked unsure and slightly overwhelmed, but she still smiled in a way that he'd never really seen before. _Innocence_ , he thought as he let the papers fall back over the picture and hide it from view. He looked up and colored in surprise at seeing Seras staring right at him. He hadn't even heard the fabric of her clothes moving. She met his gaze evenly before her eyes traveled to the closed folder beneath his hand.

"Seras?" She smiled, but unlike the picture it was lacking in something vital. It seemed empty by comparison.

"I wasn't quite as tired back then as I am now," she whispered to him. Her voice carried on the breeze, echoing in a ghostly way through the silence of the office. There was something about the words that spoke of sorrow that he couldn't, and probably would never be able to, understand. He felt the strong urge to comfort her in some way, but knew that she would be averse to it. She shied away from his touches when he grew soft or sentimental, as though the emotion itself hurt her. Maybe it did, reminding her of something that she'd once embodied but had since forgotten. The Seras in the picture would have accepted his sympathy, he was sure. He cleared his throat, shoving the folder aside and picking up another without even glancing at the name. He opened it, just to give himself something to hide behind, away from her cryptic expressions and words.

"In any case, this Mina corpse…" he mumbled, staring face to face with a wallet sized portrait of a Japanese nun in large glasses, "I thought she was cured of vampirism. In the novel she was, at least. When they defeated Alucard—the Count, I mean—the mark on her forehead left her and she was supposed to be pure again. How does that work?" he asked, pushing the nun to the side and looking instead at a scruffy man with a scar. He was large, even his portrait looked uncomfortable at being pushed into something so tiny. "Seras, are you even listening to me?" he asked when she didn't respond, resting the open folder on his lap. "Seras?" Seras stared down obliviously at the scruffy man with dislike, her mouth twisting into a deeper frown. "Hello?" Her head jerked up and she looked deeply into his eyes for a long, awkward moment before clearing her throat and playing with her gloves.

"You'll have to ask Master on that," she said quickly, shoulders hunching as she picked at her nails through the white material. "I'm not sure how it works. I've never really asked myself." Fulton graced her with a condescending smile.

"You have no clue how it works, and yet you've been through the process yourself?" he deadpanned. Seras pursed her lips and turned her nose to the air.

"I don't remember much of the process, for your information. I _happened_ to be dying at the time."

"Or _maybe_ it's dementia." Fulton smiled as her head whipped around faster than he could blink. Her eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Say that one more time?" she purred, a warning note in her tone.

"Ah, and hearing loss; I forget the old have hearing loss as well," he snickered. "I probably should have guessed—I mean, anyone can look at you and catch a glimpse of those _crow's feet_." Naturally there wasn't any more wrinkles on her flawless skin than there was on his own youthful face, but he did enjoy tormenting her on occasion about her looks. She was still a creature of the strangest vanity, not wearing makeup and yet set on looking as beautiful as possible.

He jumped from his desk chair, laughing at the indignant shriek of wordless anger behind him as he stretched his muscles in a light jog. She didn't debase herself by chasing after him, but he still took the time to take a breather from his work and get some exercise in. He rounded the corner of the hall, the edge of the carpeting catching his heel and causing him to stumble. He landed onto a sea of red, his nose getting a whiff of something antique and slightly nauseating before tumbling backwards. A gloved hand emerged from the crimson blob to catch his wrist before he landed on his backside. He took a step back, adjusting his glasses and drawing himself up to full height in an effort to save some of his dignity.

"Ah, Alucard," he greeted the ancient vampire in a boisterous, charismatic tone that didn't sound like himself in the slightest. "Just the person I was looking for. I have something that I need to run by you, to clarify—" He turned at a sound behind him and saw Seras coming around the corner after him, most likely to scold him for running through the hallway. She glanced at Alucard before averting her eyes pointedly and continuing down the hall without so much as a 'good evening'.

"And where is she off to?" Alucard asked Fulton as she passed, clearly trying to get a rise out of the blonde woman. She ignored him smoothly, turning left at the end of the hallway and heading for the training grounds and showers.

"Probably to check for crow's feet," Fulton blurted before he could think. One black brow arched imperiously over the orange sunglasses and Fulton laughed nervously. "Well, I mean—it's nothing. Just something we were talking about earlier. Anyway, I was doing a bit of research in my office and I've come across an anomaly of sorts. You could call it that, I guess," he faltered, knowing that he was blabbering nonsensically and hating himself for it. "What I mean to say is—the Nazis took DNA from Mina Harker after she was supposedly cured from her vampirism by van Helsing and the others. How is that possible?"

"One is not cured of vampirism," Alucard laughed scornfully. "van Helsing, Harker, Holmwood—they were all fools to believe that defeating me would bring about peace."

"But her mark faded," Fulton protested.

"Burns usually do. It wasn't deep enough to leave a scar. This was at the dawn of modern ideas, boy. Medicine was still in its crawling infancy, compared to today's standards." The logic of it caught Fulton by surprise, and he dwelled on it long enough that Alucard had moved to pass on down the hallway before he spoke again.

"So she was always a vampire, then? After you bit her?"

"It was more than mere biting," Alucard responded. "If you read the book properly, she was forced to drink my blood as well. That was the act that truly sealed what she was, though she could have never went back to humanity, no matter what happened to me." His back was turned to Fulton, so that the heir couldn't see what, if anything, resided on the vampire's features. "She would never be the same person again. She walked the rest of her mortal life with one foot in daylight and the other in darkness. She knew it, too, though I doubt that she told any of her male compatriots about it."

"I see." Fulton shifted uncomfortably, wondering what it would mean to life one's entire life as a lie, hiding from one's spouse and friends the truth of their failure in order to save their happiness. There was a wry chuckle from Alucard.

"Harker was weak; she couldn't handle the truth of what she'd become. Seras, at least, was able to mentally handle what she'd gotten herself into by accepting my offer of the night and all its infinite splendors." He spoke sarcastically, waving his hand in time with the flowery speech. "Or so the books would say, if any were written about her."

"Seras has drank your blood?" A memory of the night Mina attacked came back to him. _I never became true Nosferatu_ ….

"No, she's refused every time I've offered. I'm afraid that in the end, she was still as weak as Harker, despite my first notions."

"Seras isn't weak. She's one of the strongest people that I know," Fulton argued proudly. "Don't call her that."

"She is _weak_." Alucard stalked back to him in two long steps. "Your precious, darling, _brave_ Seras Victoria is nothing but a sniveling coward. She refused to drink blood, she let herself get malnourished despite my warnings, she fought for stupid human notions like _truth_ and _justice_. Where did she end up for her efforts? Missing an arm and as bumbling a fool as she ever was. When it was too late for her to realize the truth, she was as weak then as she is now. Anyone can see it, even spoiled brazen brats like yourself."

"She won't drink your blood. That's the only reason she's still weak in your eyes." Fulton faced him calmly, though his insides churned with the urge to somehow strike the vampire down where he stood. "If that's all you hold her up to, then your argument is weak by comparison. Seras is strong in her own way; just because _you_ don't understand it doesn't make her any less inadequate." A gloved hand landed on his collarbone and pushed him into the wall, not hard enough to hurt but just enough that he was immobile.

"What a good little Hellsing you are, talking so boldly to the family's pet dog," Alucard sneered. "However…" He leaned in, nose millimeters from Fulton's own as he sniffed. "I can smell your fear. Are you afraid of me, boy?"

"Absolutely not," Fulton lied, clutching at the wrist of the hand that held him to the wall. "Get off me, vampire." Alucard conceded, releasing him and stepping back.

"You should be afraid," he called over his shoulder as he continued down the hall. "Dogs bite." He vanished into a cloud of mist at the end of the hallway and Fulton glared after him, grinding his teeth. It was only when Winston came by a fresh stack of papers that he came back from his angry daydreams of putting a stake right through the crimson clad vampire's heart.

"Sir, is something the matter?" Winston asked as he handed him the papers, rather than walk all the way to the young man's office. Fulton looked at him for a moment, trying to sum up his feelings.

"Winston, I _hate_ vampires."

* * *

"Hey." Alucard stopped, glancing up from his moonlight stroll of the grounds to see Seras staring at him, arms crossed. She had been hell-bent on intercepting him after hearing about his threatening gestures towards his new master from an irate Winston, but he'd kept dodging her all night. Now, as dawn barely lit the skyline on the other side of the fence, she had managed to find him outside. And in the cemetery, no less. "We need to talk."

Alucard turned from her in one smooth motion, walking along the crooked graves of soldiers and Hellsing family members. She followed him tirelessly, determined to see this through. She wasn't the crybaby pushover that he'd once known, trying to flap her wings as a sputtering newborn fledgling vampire. He knew that, though he wouldn't admit to it. She didn't know why she had thought it would be any different than it was back then, before they'd been locked away. Even then, he'd been so odd around her, first with the poisoning effort, then with the feathers…. But that was ancient history, and this was the here and now.

"You've raised that whelp to be quite feisty. A bit too much like _her_ , I daresay." Seras looked up to see him standing in front of a gravestone that she knew all too well. _Sir Integra… poor Sir Integra._

"You could say that it's in his blood," she replied cooly, moving to stand next to him instead of in his shadow. "She's a part of who he is, just like her ancestors were a part of her. He'll be part of the next heir, too. I thought you told me that once, when the young master came home after her death." Her mind replayed their conversation; she'd made her own parallel between mother and child, and he'd said as much to her as they sat together on the rooftops. They'd been closer in those days; what had changed? She watched him closely, cocking her head to stare up into his face from beneath his hat. When he refused to acknowledge her, she sighed and turned her face away.

"You know, I wish that you'd just tell me what your problem is," she muttered, running a hand through her hair. "We used to talk about everything together. Something's changed between us, Master."

"I have no clue what you're referring to, Police Girl." She stamped one foot onto the hard-packed earth, throwing her hands up in the air in frustration.

"This! All of this!" she exclaimed. "We don't talk like we used to. Hell, you don't even look at me anymore, unless it's just to get a rise out of someone else!"

"Ah, so you're jealous?" he mocked.

"No, but I think you are." Immediately his mood shifted, growing dangerous and icy. She kept the shiver confined to her spine, but she still felt it creeping warningly up towards her neck. However, she couldn't stop herself. "You're jealous because now the tables are turned, aren't they? _I'm_ the one with a deep bond, and you're just the third party that came in a little too late." The answering punch blindsided her, even as she saw his arm move. A part of her thought that he would crack the gravestone behind her, but it was her face that met with his fist. Her head rocked and stars danced before her eyes, but she managed to stay on her feet.

"Is that what you think this is about?" he snarled, grabbing a handful of her lapels and dragging her forward until they were nose to nose. "I've never had any so-called deep bond, because I'm not weak enough to want it, or need it. We have no need to understand humans, and quite frankly, my dear, I'm getting rather tired of them. "

"What is it, Master?" she growled when she could think straight again. "Are you concerned that he _does_ have too much of his ancestors in his blood? Are you worried that he'll do the same thing as _he_ did?" she accused, pointing to another, fresher grave that stood off near the gate. Despite the darkness of the night, they could both read the name emblazoned upon the stone. "He's not Enoch," she continued in a softer tone, more appeasing this time.

"How dare you speak that name to me?" Alucard roared, upsetting the animals in the forest beyond the graveyard fence and sending the leaves of the trees quivering. He threw another punch, but Seras wasn't going to fall for the same thing twice. She caught it in her hand, arm trembling with effort as she strove to hold him off.

"Because unlike you, I've given up on running from my past!" she shouted back, matching his volume. "I've accepted what's made me this way. It's just like you told me, all those years ago—nothing could have stopped the way things had to be. Not God, the Devil, or _you_!" Her words stopped his arm and it hung in the air, still caught in her tight grip. "Or me, either," she added almost gently. "So just give it up already." They stared at each other for a long moment, one angrily contemplating, the other almost pleading. "Please."

"Drink my blood, Seras Victoria." She blinked twice as he let go of her, running a fingernail along his neck. It should have been impossible to cut his neck through the glove without ripping it as well, but a fine line appeared and blood trickled from the open wound. "Stop running from your past, if that's what you truly want."

"Not here," she refused, forcing her lips tight together. "Not like this." His nose curled in disgust as he wiped the blood from his neck with one finger before tracing a pinstripe of her suit and leaving a dark streak on the vertical line between her breasts.

"Perhaps I am running, in my own way," he mused aloud, his eyes stony. "Running from the fact that I once thought you'd be of use to me." He left her, shadows pooling around him and dragging him from the mortal realm to his dark chambers before the growing morning light could touch his skin. She slumped down to her knees, leaning back against the stone remains of her first 'Sir'. Tears pricked her eyes, but she'd promised herself over sixty years ago that she'd never cry again, not unless she just couldn't help it.

"You're jealous," she spoke to the crisp spring morning, the gravestone hiding the rising sun from her body. She half-hoped that he'd hear her, despite having already left. "You're jealous because I don't need you anymore." Her lie fell upon deaf ears, no answer to her words other than the chirrups of birds in the trees, the air around her filled with the silent repose of moldering bodies in eternal rest.


	12. Kitchen Comfort

_Fire._

 _Billowing fire, pillars of it leaping from casement to casement, pouring like molten metal from cracks in the brick, spewing burning plaster and bits of floor down onto the screaming, fleeing figures of so many humans. They couldn't outrun the fire, stumbling and coughing as they choked on the smoke, thick with the stench of burning antiques. Gone were the paintings, the jewels, the luxurious rugs. Gone were the last of the heirlooms saved from that time, so long ago, when approaching zeppelins cast their shadow over the bloody eye of the moon._

 _She didn't need to breathe, something she was oddly thankful for. How could she draw a single breath of this fiery air, scorching and shimmering in the early light of dawn? The flames licked at the roof around her, somehow missing her in their never-ending quest to devour everything in sight, fighting for the continuation of its life. She didn't want to watch, didn't want to see her world burning around her, going up in so much black smoke against the perfect, endless blue that foretold another beautiful summer's day was hours away. But she couldn't close her eyes, some small part of her knowing that she had to see this, had to understand and accept what was happening, even if it was her last memory of this world. She, too, might burn away into ash and dust, leaving nothing behind that told her story, no sign that she was there, had ever been there._

 _There was a searing pain in her mind, twisting her brain sideways and plunging a blade into her eyes from the back. Her eyes screwed shut despite her reluctance to close them, teeth biting into her tongue from the pain. She felt the flesh give beneath the sharp incisors, slicing through the muscle and nearly lopping the tip off. A moment later, she felt the tendrils of shredded meat pulling themselves together, knitting it back until it was whole once more. God, how awful it felt! How agonizing the pain!_ _ **What**_ _did she have to do to make it stop?!_

 _She clenched her jaw even tighter, trying to keep from screaming out from the torturous onslaught. She didn't want to scream, didn't want to give him the satisfaction. Cracking her eyes, she could see him standing there, laughing as the flames danced around him. How could he stand it? How could he stand to be so close to that scalding touch of fire, how could he breathe the boiling air around him? She could see the sweat pooling on his collar, dripping down his cheeks until they looked like tears. She couldn't hear his laughter over the roar of the fire beneath her feet, but she could see the shaking shoulders, the open maw, the glitter of insanity in his eyes._ _ **He's mad. He's gone stark raving and he's going to kill himself as well as us.**_

 _Even in her pain, she reached out to him. A small, nearly desperate part of her wanted to save him. For Sir's sake, if not his own. She wondered if perhaps she was mad as well, wanting to save a lunatic trying to kill her for the sake of a dead woman's memory. But the fire sizzled and popped between them, something that neither of them could cross. An eternal breach between them. The only difference was that he was nearer to the door, and could theoretically still escape if he so chose._

 _She felt, rather than saw, the power crackling through the air and knew that they had been joined on the roof. He no longer looked human, or even humane. Millions of eyes watched her, watched the laughing man, watched the fire. Millions of unblinking eyes, unable to feel the pain of the heat. In their heart, covered in writhing shadow—or was it hair?—she saw him stand, claws reaching out for the mirthful figure. She screamed at him to stop, knowing almost instinctively that something, some terrible, terrible thing, was going to happen if he hurt the other. She called for him the way she'd called for him before, when it was just the two of them in the endless hallway and her goal had been to save and soothe, rather than to stay alive._

 _He ignored her, and when she leaped over the flames at him, burning her arms in the process, the shadows caught her. She struggled, but no longer were they the warm, comfortable shadows that she'd always known. He paid less attention to her than he would prey, and the shadows stung with the itching pain of little barbs and scratched at her skin like the roughest sandpaper. Then they flung her away, arcing over the flames and she still wasn't entirely in control, still couldn't protect herself from the landing back in the place where she'd once stood. She heard the crack before she felt the accompanying pain, her leg shattered into a thousand fractured pieces. Still, what could she do? She had to stop him; she_ _ **had**_ _to._

 _She dragged herself, her hands working as hard as they could, prepared to face the fire if it meant keeping them all safe. But she was too slow, and she heard the thin, high wail of a child above the roaring that now seemed to be in her own mind. No, he couldn't—he_ _ **wouldn't**_ _. But he would. She knew, deep within herself, that he would take such lengths. And it was all for her sake that he did so, even if his shadows hurt. Even if he'd thrown her._

 _She pulled herself up to her elbows, staring wide-eyed through the flames less than a finger's length from her nose. The laughter had stopped, and she saw instead rage on the madman's visage. She felt the force of his anger, even through her own pain._

" _You did this!" he shrieked at her, finger pointing. "It's_ _ **your**_ _fault!" She couldn't find it in herself to respond, but behind him she saw the writhing shadows life a small, limp figure above the flames. Her heart froze solid in that moment, knowing that the scene would be forever etched upon her brain, until the time came that she went to whatever awaited her after this nearly eternal lifetime. Suddenly, she felt something leave her, something viable, something that she needed._ _ **I'll never be the same again. Not after this.**_ _She died in that moment, on her stomach and surrounded by hellfire. A single word escaped her lips, a plea that perhaps if he just_ _ **stopped**_ _, this horrid nightmare could end and she would wake up in her coffin, ready to live and laugh another day._

" _Master!"_

* * *

Seras sat up in her coffin with a gasp, hearing the lid clatter somewhere to her left. Her breast heaved with labored breathing, her skin clammy. She felt as though she'd been doused with the coldest water, despite having been burning alive only moments before. She looked around the dark room, licking her lips and trying to catch her breath before running her hands through her hair.

"It was only a dream." She took a deep breath, then another, and another. She lay back down, hearing a muffled squelch and knowing that her pillow would be stained with shed tears. "It was… nothing." It was nearly noon, if not a bit after. She could feel the sun above her like a magnet, pushing her down into the ground rather than pulling her up the way the moon's charms did. She let out a long exhale, lifting herself out of the coffin and fumbling for the nightstand lamp to see the damage her crimson-tinged tears had done. Flipping on the light, she noted with relief that it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Pulling the pillow out of the casing, she shoved the latter into the laundry chute and took the former into the washroom. A bit of scrubbing cleared the rest of the fresh stain, and she laid it along the bathtub rim to dry before putting a hand on her stomach. Crying always took away tears, which meant blood, which meant she was left as hungry as a hormonal teenager.

She sighed, not wanting to be awake at this ungodly hour of the day but knowing that she needed to get upstairs and get some nourishment. It wasn't like the old days, when she could have went months without eating and still been fine. Drinking blood led to a very unkind dependence, one that meant constant feeding, or else. If she skipped now, there was no guarantee that she would have the strength to rise from her coffin later. She felt the weakness now, in her joints and in the feebleness of her limbs. Taking a moment to wash the bloody remnants from her cheeks, she grabbed a dressing gown and slung it over her shoulders before leaving her bedroom and climbing the seemingly endless stairs to the first level.

The foyer was thankfully unoccupied, none of the dayshift soldiers having to see her so casually dressed. They didn't like her anyway, she knew; the nightshift tolerated her to an extent, but none of them had ever reached the comradery she'd had with the Wild Geese. She felt a stirring of loneliness, but she pushed it aside with a huff as she wandered the halls in search of Winston or the kitchen, whichever came first.

Friendship was something she was no longer really capable of. Or, at the very least, not something she sought after anymore. That was what the _Police Girl_ had wanted, and she'd died long ago. Seras Victoria didn't need companionship, though she was content to have it in the form of Winston and her human master. Being Fulton's servant made her think of old times, when she'd been under Sir Integra's wing. It was an odd mix of sibling-esque compassion and kindred natures that worked well in most cases. And Winston was both a fine man and true gentleman.

As for her inhuman master…. well, at least he was awake. She had thought that if and when she'd be allowed to wake him, they would be back to their normal selves. But of course life hadn't been that easy, had it? And he wasn't over his troubles, either. Then again, she hadn't been fine when she'd woken up in the attic, either. It had taken her years of long, hard thought before she'd been able to move past what the Hellsing family had done to her, and even more to trust Fulton the way she'd once trusted his ancestors. If he wanted his space, she'd give it to him.

"Miss Victoria?" She looked up to see her feet had carried her to both the kitchen _and_ the butler. "What on earth are you doing up so early? It's barely one o'clock!" Winston dried his hands on his apron, looking at her with concern. "Is everything alright?"

"I'm starving to death," she muttered, moving past him towards the door to the industrial cooler. "No one can sleep on an empty stomach, not even me."

"You should have rang for me," Winston complained as he trailed her, but let her do the work herself. "I would have brought you anything you wanted; you know that." She _did_ know; he doted on her the way Walter—it hurt to even think of that name sometimes—used to dote on Sir Integra.

"It's fine." She settled for two packs of O and B, enough for a nice snack to tide her over until her real breakfast. Winston offered her a tumbler and a seat at the table, both of which she accepted. Pouring the two packs in at the same time, she mixed them together and chugged it down like medicine, not stopping until the last bit had fell from the rim of the glass.

"Do you need an adjustment in your meals?" he asked hesitantly, biting his lip as he watched her. "I could speak to the young master about it if you'd like."

"No," she replied, handing the tumbler to him. "I just lost some blood and needed to get back up to speed." He stared intently at her, as if trying to decide exactly where she'd lost the blood from and how. Knowing that he'd see the pillowcase himself, or that one of the laundry maids would tell him if he didn't, she added, "I was crying in my sleep and didn't realize until I woke up."

"Oh dear," he murmured sympathetically, drawing up a seat next to her as soon as he'd put the dish in the special hazmat 'vampire dishwasher'. "Is there something the matter? Anything you'd like to talk about?"

"No." She knew that she ought not be so callous, especially not to someone who had done nothing but serve her from his first night in the house. He was her loyal butler and sparring partner, and the closest thing to a true friend that she'd had since… well, dwelling on the past would only make her bitter, or even worse—she'd start crying again. He didn't seem to notice the slight, however, and instead reached out to boldly put a hand on her shoulder.

"Was it… _him_?" She looked up from the table to stare at him, trying to discern his meaning. His brow was knitted, nearly meeting over his nose. "The new one," he clarified when she didn't answer. "He's been nothing but trouble since he came. I have no clue why Master Fulton let him in this house. What a bothersome old…" he trailed off, looking at a loss for words.

"Git."

"Hmm?"

"A bothersome old git. That's the insult you're looking for." He laughed, and she couldn't help but smile a little too. He had a hearty chuckle that lifted even the dampest of spirits, and it was one of her favorite things about him. She wondered, not for the first time, what she might have thought of him had they met before her imprisonment, or when she had been human. She might have been even fonder of him than she was now; she was almost sure of it. "Even so, it doesn't answer my question."

"You're a nosy bugger today," she frowned, but he only shrugged. "But yes, if you insist on knowing."

"He didn't put his hands on you, did he?"

"I told you, I was crying in my sleep." He didn't look convinced. "No, he didn't hurt me. We just had an argument. I've known him for a long time, and he's never been the most approachable of men even at the best of times. It's nothing to be concerned over."

"You argued." He nodded slowly, tapping one fingernail on the table. "I'm going to go out on a limb and say it was his fault, and that you're blameless."

"Thank you," she chuckled. "But I'm not really as innocent as you think."

"You? Hah!" He waved a hand at her teasingly. "You're _entirely_ too innocent, Miss Victoria."

"I'm not," she protested. Something stirred within her and she sighed again. "Listen… if I'd done something terrible, something completely unforgivable, but it wasn't really on purpose and it had just caused a lot of trouble for everyone—" She fisted a hand through her hair again. "Winston, do you really think I'm good? Or am I bad?" There was a long silence and she peered at him through her bangs to see him watching her thoughtfully. After a moment he yanked his long ponytail over his shoulder and fingered it, rubbing the ends until they frizzed. Then he took a deep breath.

"If you'd done something unforgivable, but regretted it very much and tried your best to make amends no matter what, I'd _say_ that you were good. But sometimes we just can't make amends for the things we've done, not during the duration of our lives. That doesn't mean that we're bad, though." He flipped the hair back over his shoulder and laced his fingers on the wood.

"It's my personal belief that no one is simply good or bad; that's a very black and white situation. But instead, it's what traits a person leans on that make them worth knowing or not." He looked up at her again, brown eyes warm and inviting. "And you are most definitely worth knowing." She felt the place where her heart once was constrict, as through trying to remember what it felt like to be loved. It sent a strange emotion through her, one that she recognized after a moment: satisfaction.

"You know, I like you a lot, Winston." She offered him a smile borne by the emotion his words had caused. "You remind me a lot of myself when I was a human."

"Really?" He sounded astonished. She nodded, the smile fading.

"Yes, I—I wish I could be like that again."

"You mean you want to be a human." She shook her head and he made a small sound of confusion. "What, then?"

"I wish I was still that good. I wish I could still automatically think the best of everyone and everything, no matter what I saw. I wish… I wish I still believed in redemption."

"You can be redeemed." He blushed when she looked at him. "A-anyone can, is what I meant," he added quickly.

"Even Alucard?" she prompted with a slightly sarcastic grin. He made a face, but shrugged.

"I don't like him, but… from what Master Fulton has told me, he made you into a vampire?" She nodded. "Well, without him, you and I would have never met. You'd have been dead long ago. So, for that, I think that maybe he can be redeemed. The option is there, anyway." He scratched his head and looked away, his cheeks still glowing.

"He'd call you a fool if he heard you say that." She stood. "I'm going back to bed. Thank you," she said again, though she wasn't quite sure what she was really thanking him for. "Again. Good day."

"Sleep well, Miss Seras," he called after her gently. "I'll see you at your breakfast." She nodded and walked back towards the basement, her mind tumbling over the conversation. _He can be redeemed; the option is there, anyway._ She shook her head and rolled her eyes, laughing sardonically at the very thought of one semi-selfish deed on Alucard's part becoming the key to his salvation.

 _That sounds just like something…_ She stopped on the basement stairs, one hand on the wall. A sudden breeze blew through the causeway, sending a shiver down her spine and lifting her hair up as though trying to peer into her face uninhibited. It was as if he knew she was thinking of him in the moment, and the second genuine smile of the day crept across her face, a rarity in itself. _Maybe_ _ **he's**_ _the key to this little problem. Perhaps a visit is in order._

* * *

 **Afterword:** A much longer scene compared to the original chapter! And I added a little segue into the next chapter, which introduces one of our favorite friends (or mine, anyway). |OwO) This story is progressing quite quickly, even with all the added content, no?


	13. Kitten, Part I

**Author's Note:** Here it is, the chapter all of you—and when I say all, I mean myself plus, like, three other people—have been waiting for! _(wipes tears from eyes)_ This chapter was the very first appearance of one of my most beloved characters…. What memories!

In other news, hard to believe it's been nearly four years, eh? And, as per my usual style, I'm taking much longer with releasing these chapters than I ever did the original. Now, where did I learn that particular talent from? Hmm… _(Ketti wiggles nervously in the back row)_

* * *

When Seras had told Fulton that she knew of a man who just might be able to shed more light on Willa and her various past egos, he told her to waste no time in getting a formal interview. Even when she told him that they'd have to travel to his house in the countryside, he hadn't hesitated. But now, squinting at the long, uneven brick path leading through the trees, he was starting to feel unsure. Seras walked along briskly ahead of him, seemingly knowing what forks to take and which direction to turn automatically, without having to look through the dense trees. He was too preoccupied with keeping up with her to look up much either.

He'd planned on going the day before, but a few back-to-back incidents that evening had made leaving the house impractical. Besides being bullied into a last-minute conference call that lasted all of three hours and was based on the most boring topic known to man—tax exemptions—he had finally dragged himself away from his desk only to find his butler was in near hysterics from mixed rage and fear. Apparently, some sort of Gytrash had infiltrated the manor and not only left muddy, human-foot sized paw prints all through the house, but also had completely dug up an entire bed of flowers.

Fulton had thought Winston to be exaggerating until he stepped on one of the leftover paw prints and found the beast's foot to be larger than his shoe. Becoming alarmed himself, Fulton had roused Seras out of a deep sleep to come and see about the thing. Staring blearily at the paw prints, she had sighed and shook her head when asked if she might chase it down and get rid of the thing.

"It's just one of Alucard's familiars," she had muttered sleepily, scuffing the muddy print with her bare toes. "He's docile enough… I think." She yawned and was prepared to go back to bed when from the second story came the Gytrash, or familiar, or whatever it was. Fulton balked in shock and fear, gaining half the foyer towards the front door in less time than it took the beast to bound down the staircase. Winston recoiled and pulled his body up onto the banister and out of its way, his mop held over his head as he stared wide-eyed at the thing.

The great shaggy animal stopped, staring at Seras, and Winston boldly smacked it soundly on the rear with the mop, the strands plopping wetly against the creature's fur. It turned, letting out a low growl as its hackles rose and _four_ eyes glowed red as sunset. Winston turned three shades of green, but courageously held up the mop again and pointed to the door.

"Out," he commanded shakily, finger trembling. "Bad dog." The animal didn't listen, instead taking a step towards Winston as its voice caught on a snarl. Seras snapped her fingers and kicked at its leg, prompting it to turn around and face this newest threat.

"Baskerville," she spoke with an authority that _dared_ to be challenged. "Go to your master." She pointed not outside, but instead towards the basement staircase. The dog hesitated, but she advanced on it and pointed again, swatting at its backside with her shadows. "Go on. Downstairs. You've caused enough trouble for tonight." The familiar retreated, though not without a few good last-minute grumbles on its part. She looked after it before turning to the two men. "He normally doesn't attack unless on orders. You just have to be stern with him."

"Just like his master," Fulton mused, and Seras chuckled wryly before turning and heading back to the comfort of her basement room. Winston, on the other hand, was sighing as he stared at the mess of paw prints on the tile and carpeted stairs, and Fulton knew that he was imagining his ruined perennials. "Is something burning?" he asked, not wanting to add fuel to the fire, but there was a strange odor to the air.

"I'll be damned if it's not the supper," Winston cursed, jogging back towards the kitchens with the mop slung under his arm. "That thing scared the maids and—oi! Who's watching the chicken!?" Fulton smiled, though he knew from the tone of Winston's voice that the man would be nursing a migraine later from the stress and excitement of it all.

It was true, and the setbacks from the man's condition had put Fulton's visit off one more day. He was fully prepared to apologize, though Seras had cryptically remarked that 'he doesn't really count days' and therefore one extra night wouldn't be missed. As they moved from the dense thicket into a clearing, Fulton looked up automatically as the moonlight beamed down as brightly as the noon sun. It was a cloudless night, and far above their heads the Milky Way shone in all its splendor.

Just ahead stood a two-story Victorian manor. It reminded him, oddly enough, of the description of the house of Usher. _Upon the mere house and the simple landscape features of the domain—upon the bleak walls—upon the vacant eye-like windows—upon the few rank sedges…_ Yes, this was the house, though perhaps not _quite_ as depressing as the one in Poe's tale. Despite all the gloominess of the exterior, there was a certain charm in the leafless ivy on the south wall, in the quaint greenhouse offset near a large bricked fence, in the belfry perched high above them and offset only by one other turret. As he looked, several bats swooped from the high arches of the belfry and danced across the night in search of their insect-laden suppers.

"There's… there's bats in the belfry," he pointed out to Seras, wheezing slightly as he caught up with her on the front walk. "You're certain we can trust this man?" He meant it as a joke, but she took him literally and nodded.

"I've known him many years, and I'd trust him a thousand times over with my life. I have, on a few occasions," she admitted dryly. He stared at her until the squeaking of the bats gathered his attention once more. He was still craning his head to look up at the night sky when Seras pulled the rope beside the front door. He expected a loud gong or even for the bell to ring, but other than the distant tinkle of a harp he caught no sound. He expected a servant to open the door, seeing as the manor itself looked as though it belonged to gentry. But no servant appeared, and a few minutes passed before any answer to the doorbell was made.

"Coming, coming!" The voice was distant and muffled; they had to wait before the appearance of the man to whom it belonged. Eventually, there was the sound of a lock turning and a chain unbolting, and the door opened. A man stood on the other side, taller than Fulton by a full head and spindly to boot with hardly any muscle mass to speak of other than a set of broad shoulders. He was perhaps in his forties, with a lack of wrinkles but the appearance of fine lines around his eyes, which were magnified by an antique set of wire-rimmed spectacles that gave him a very owlish appearance. He wore a white button-down shirt and brown suit pants, held in place by matching suspenders. Over this was a dirtied apron that suggested he had either been painting or murdering someone; either way, it was splattered with crimson.

The man looked at Seras for a long moment before sighing good-naturedly and shaking his head, pulling the apron over his head and doubling it before putting it over his arm, the clean side facing out.

"Kitten," he clucked, and now that Fulton could better hear his voice he discerned it to be a low, even tone that sounded on the verge of bursting into a hearty chuckle at any moment. "I hate to say it, but time's slipped away from me again. I'm not at all fit to be seen by any sort of company."

"You do realize we're a day late," Seras said, smiling at Fulton in an 'I told you so' fashion. Fulton, who was still getting over the fact that his vicious vampiress had been dubbed a kitten, only blinked at her in response.

"A day?" The man pulled a pocket watch from his trousers and looked at it. "Well, I daresay you're right. The shame's on you, then." He disappeared back through the doorway to put the apron somewhere out of sight before reappearing. "And who is this you have with you?"

"May I present Sir Fulton Hellsing," Seras introduced, her shadows unceremoniously prodding him forward by the small of his back. The man looked at him a long moment, and Fulton met his gaze uncertainly. His eyes, now that he paid attention, were a very off-putting shade of not normal. They seemed to have more in common with the moon and stars above him than actual irises. They also gave him the feeling of being looked through, as if every fiber of his tissue and bone was being scrutinized, analyzed, and appraised.

"So, the Hellsings are still around, eh? You bunch are a hard one to kill off, aren't you?" he laughed, putting out a hand. Fulton took it and the man shook it, pulling him close to clap him on the back. "R. M. Renfield, at your service. It's a pleasure, Hellsing."

"The pleasure is mine," Fulton managed to say, despite the wind being beat out of his lungs by the one good clap. "The Renfield, you mean? From the book?" After the words left his mouth, he realized that they sounded pretentious. "I mean, not—well—"

"From the book," Renfield replied easily, overlooking—or simply just not noticing—the slight. "But what a terrible host I am!" he exclaimed. "Come inside, both of you. Surely you'd like some refreshments. What will it be? Coffee? Wine? Mate Dulce?" He ushered them in, and Fulton found himself in a large antechamber. Two staircases curved down from countless archways along the upper story, and the chambered ceiling was painted with odd pictures of burning cities.

"You changed the paintings!" Seras seemed to scold him, also staring up at the ceiling.

"Faust is quite last century," Renfield replied, already standing on the first step of the leftmost staircase. "While London Ablaze is in vogue." He tilted his head and regarded her with something akin to pity. "Don't look too closely, my dear, lest you see something you don't want to." Seras turned her eyes away from the portraits and followed him to the stairs, but Fulton remained. Was all these cities London? He supposed it must be, for at least two of them had features he recognized. The last one had the shadow of the Bioterrorist Attack Memorial in the background. The one before seemed to _be_ the Attack, the shadow of a downed zeppelin dancing in the expertly painted flames. Or were those shadows not fire, but… he tried to squint at it to see better, but Seras cleared her throat and he looked over to see them both waiting on him.

"Don't be meddlesome," Seras warned blatantly, but Renfield smiled.

"It's nice to see my handiwork appreciated," he remarked. "Now, if you please…" he motioned for them to follow him. They went down the hall to a plain door, which opened into a fancy, yet comfortable sitting room. The large window in the back wall looked out over the back lawn, which was just as sparse as the front with the exception of a horse chestnut tree. "Tea?" he offered Fulton, and the heir blinked as a tea tray was suddenly on the coffee table. He was sure it hadn't been there before, but…. He looked at Seras, who merely grinned back at him.

"Bloody Mary," she told him, once he had given Fulton a cup of what turned out to be Prince of Wales. "It's my brunch, after all." The man laughed and shrugged, preparing to pour from the teapot. Fulton wondered at how he could so blatantly disregard her words, but instead of the pouring from the spout, a cerise liquid splashed into the teacup. Renfield opened the sugar jar and pulled from it a celery stalk, breaking it in half so that it would fit into the cup before pouring a shrimp from the creamer. She took the cup and raised to him in a toast.

 _H-how?_ _ **How**_ _?!_ Fulton stared openly at Seras's cup to make sure he hadn't just imagined it. Had Renfield actually poured him a cup of tea, and her a cup of _vodka tomatoes_ from the same teapot? He hurriedly slipped his own cup—no, it was plain old Prince of Wales, the exact same kind he enjoyed in his afternoon teas. Seras looked down into her own cup before removing the shrimp and placing it on her saucer and stirring with the snapped celery stalk.

"Hors d'oeuvre?" A silver dish, covered with a cloche, was now offered to him. He looked up warily at Renfield, who stared back with an enigmatical, placating expression.

"That depends on what it is," he answered back uncertainly. Renfield laughed loudly at this, shoulders shaking. Seras laughed as well, though while the host's was amiable, hers was mocking. Renfield pulled back the cloche and Fulton cringed, expecting to see centipedes and caterpillars scrambling. Instead was an anticlimactic plate of canapes. "O-oh. Thank you." He took one to be polite, tasting cream cheese and olives. Seras shook her head when offered and Renfield sat down, placing the cloche back on the plate. Renfield winked at him and pulled it away again, replacing it almost as quickly. A housefly buzzed frantically between his thumb and forefinger. He grinned and popped it whole, biting down with a crunch that ran all the way up Fulton's spine and settled on the raised hairs of his neck.

"From the book," Renfield repeated suddenly, after he had swallowed. "As you can see. Had myself a good laugh when I read that manuscript, I did. Very good laugh indeed." He and Seras shared another small bout of chuckles, though Fulton couldn't see exactly what was so funny. Perhaps it was just the fact that they were both bordering madness? Seras less so, but from what Fulton had seen of Renfield…. He couldn't be assured of the man's sanity.

"You're not a vampire, though." It was more of a question than a statement. Renfield looked startled. "Your eyes aren't red?"

"Never claimed to be," he responded genially. "Never got the pleasure, if you believe the book. Though I must say that the vampiric diet leaves much to be desired." He frowned at Seras. "Blood, alcohol, fruits and vegetables in moderation…. Disgusting." He waved a hand dismissively. "Absolutely revolting. Wouldn't have it if you paid me."

"Certainly not the highlight of my life, either," Seras remarked, sipping her drink. "But it does get easier with time. I can't really remember what food tastes like anymore."

"What are you, then, if not a vampire?" Fulton asked respectfully, pulling out his 'polite' tone.

"Well… that's rather hard to explain," Renfield admitted. "I'm a bit like a dæmon, and a lot like a succubus, but I'm really not either. I'm not an angel or a devil, or mortal, or _immortal._ I'm the gray area of the universe," he concluded happily. "I'm nothing."

"I thought succubuses—"

"Succubae," Renfield and Seras corrected simultaneously.

"— _succubae_ were females, and that incubi were men."

"Well, I suppose that might be true. I could never tell." Renfield looked thoughtful. "They don't really compare gender, demons. They don't even have terms for male and female between them. I think they might be one and the same if they try hard enough." Still, Fulton thought about it and almost laughed aloud at the thought of the owlish man trying to seduce women for their souls.

"So what you're saying, ultimately, is that you go for souls." Renfield looked alarmed, jumping slightly in in his chair and accidentally releasing his next meal, a blinking firefly. It flew to hang on the lamp and the man scowled up at it before choosing a moth instead.

"I do no such thing; what would I want with a soul?" he chided. "I have no use for them. You can't eat them, you know. They're very insubstantial without a body. And, as our dear Draculina can tell you, even vampires can't get rid of them entirely once they're ingested. A piece of them will always remain on earth, no matter where the rest of it flies away to." Fulton looked at Seras, who was staring down into her cup as though seeing something that he couldn't. The corners of her mouth moved further south the longer he watched, and she regained that tired, world-weary expression he knew too well. Renfield sighed as he watched her.

"In any case," he continued after a pensive moment, "its life I'm after. _Energy_ is a better term for it." He reached for the dish again, before pushing it away decidedly. Seras arched a brow at him, presumably recovered from whatever temporary melancholy his words had sent her into. "Watching my diet," he informed her merrily. "Bugs, my boy, are like sweets to me. Very nice indeed, but not filling in the slightest. After all, things that live a short time don't have nearly enough life for me to ingest. I need substance."

"Like… birds?" Fulton asked, going a whim from the book. Renfield smiled.

"Birds and bats do well. Bugs _will_ do, in a pinch. A human would set me up for a good year, though I detest taking human life when animals do just as well. I find myself on the occasional bear hunt if I get very peckish. And kittens, let's not forget kittens." Seras rolled her eyes. "I always did want that blasted Count to get me one," Renfield continued as if he'd not noticed. "He held such interesting company. _I_ even worked for him from time to time, you know," he said conversationally to Fulton. "But it's ever so hard to get someone like _him_ to share anything, much less a kitten. I was surprised when he told me to—what I mean is, back in those later days, when everything was going on and on with that _other_ new Hellsing—he told me to take this one and—"

Seras cleared her throat again and sat up, staring intently at Renfield. The man raised his eyebrows at her, but lapsed into silence with a patient smile. Fulton, who had already lost track of whatever the man had been trying to subtly say, instead began to wonder why Seras would want him to stop from talking about what seemed to be a relatively innocent topic. Unless it wasn't innocent at all, which meant that _maybe_ they were more than friends after all?

"Absolutely not," Seras spoke out, and he looked up from his tea to see her glaring at him. He paled, knowing that she'd read his thoughts.

" _You_ made him stop talking," Fulton replied indifferently, not in the least bit sorry.

"This isn't a social call," Seras argued quietly. "We can't spend all night rehashing old memories. Ones that aren't even worth the trouble of remembering."

"You know," Renfield interrupted, "the more time passes, the more you sound like him. That's not good."

"I assure you that I have nothing more to do with _him_ ," Seras answered impatiently, placing her cup on the saucer with enough force to set it rattling and misplace the poor forgotten shrimp. "We are nothing more than old acquaintances and I don't stay around him long enough to pick up any habits."

"That's not good, either," Renfield observed, his voice never leaving the realm of serene thought. "Tell me, Hellsing: what brings you to my home this evening, if not to visit?"

"Oh!" Fulton leaned forward eagerly. "I need you to tell me what you know about Wilhelmina Harker—she goes by Willa now, but Seras said that you…." He trailed off when he saw the blood leave the man's face. Renfield slumped back in his chair, gazing down at the Oriental rug beneath them.

"Yes… such a pretty sort of girl." His eyes slid closed. "I did _try_ to warn her." He opened them again, staring at nothing in particular. "They all thought I was stark mad, of course. I was in the asylum, after all." He seemed to be muttering to himself rather than answering Fulton directly. Fulton glanced at Seras, who leaned over and snapped her fingers beneath his nose. Renfield jumped and looked at her before folding his arms and crossing one leg over the other, settling into his seat.

"You two know, from the book, that she was the wife of Mr. Harker the solicitor of London. ONE of London's solicitors, I should say, but still he had already made a bit of a name for himself amongst his peers. I didn't meet her until she was staying with Jackie—that is, Dr. Seward—and I knew from looking at her that she was the one the Count was after. After all, _anyone_ could see that she was a Murray, and… well, that's another story for another day. I'd seen what had happened to the other women, the sisters, as van Helsing called them. I really don't know why you didn't go that route, my dear," he said aside to Seras, who bared her teeth and muttered something unintelligible. Renfield must have caught more than he did, as the man laughed almost scornfully.

"He never struck me as _good,_ though I can honestly say he showed a bit of mercy when it would be beneficial to him. Selfish mercy, what a concept." He thought this over before continuing, "But then again, who could deny you anything?" he purred to Seras, who managed to look both smug and flattered at the same time.

"Except humanity," she retorted, to which Renfield waved his hand once more.

"I called him selfish, didn't I? What more do you wish me to say?"

"Yes, but Mrs. Harker?" Fulton cut in, trying to get them back on track before dawn. Renfield seemed startled again.

"What of her? She got in bad with the Count and that was the end of the whole thing."

"But in the book, she's saved."

"Who's really _saved_?" Renfield huffed. "There's no going back on it, once you drink the blood. They could have killed every vampire from here to Timbuktu and she still would have been what she was. Van Helsing wasn't a _fool_ ; he just wanted to set the other men at ease, I'm sure. Think about it: her husband was worried sick about her, not to mention three other men, one of whom died at the vampire's ruined castle. How much easier would it be to pretend that she was alright, and secretly work on the vampire himself in captivity to see if such a woman could indeed be cured and that the man who loved her hadn't died in vain?" Renfield shook his head. "You know as well as I that he didn't find a cure at all, and the Count instead went on to become Alucard, weapon and servant of the family who enslaved him."

"But she _died_!" Fulton protested. The Nazi's had her bones!" He'd seen the pictures, filed away properly as they should be.

"The Nazis had her _corpse_ ," Renfield countered. "A vampire, when starved, can become something like the dead. It only takes a bit of virgin blood to bring them back from the brink… of course, dark magic and necromancy doesn't hurt either." Fulton felt a phantom pain on his leg, the memory of a slick tongue slurping the infantile blood, and shivered. Perhaps it was good that he had never looked in that coffin, to see what Seras had once been before tasting his life essence.

"So she _is_ a vampire," Fulton muttered, as though this was a common occurrence, finding out that historical figures were the undead. _Fake_ historical figures, if one was the common populace. "But this isn't the first time that's she's come back from death, is it? Who brought her back? Why? I already _knew_ that she was powerful enough—to destroy my house, at least. What does she want with me?"

"Well, she sort of carried a grudge on van Helsing." Renfield looked uncomfortable.

" _Why?_ "

"Let's just say that the Hellsing family has a genetic habit of locking their problems away when they can't deal with them." Renfield scratched the back of his head, his mousy hair fluffing further under the touch. Fulton stared for a moment, puzzle pieces clicking into place.

"He… he locked her away? To _starve_?" The same fate that had apparently met Seras, who refused to speak of it, had met Alucard (more than once, if the familial journal was true). "How could he?" He was appalled, disgusted, confused.

"I'm sure to van Helsing, she was the emblem of a Vestal Virgin descending into the grave for her impurity," Renfield asserted. "But in truth I doubt that she submitted as easily as a standard Victorian might." Fulton again saw the picture in the forefront of his mind, the corpse bound seven ways to Hell. Were those binds not all decorative after all? Seras was staring out the window, lost in thought with a frown on her face.

"But surely she wouldn't hold a grudge against his…" Fulton counted the generations and gave up. "Offspring! Distant offspring!"

"She's insane," Renfield explained patiently. "To her, any surviving blood of his is too much on this planet. She won't rest until she's killed off the bloodline, and there are more than enough individuals willing to resurrect her in exchange for the chance to study a real, honest progeny of the King Vampire."

"Do you know who's done it this time around?" Seras asked, turning her head back to the party. Renfield was quiet, a scholarly frown on his face.

"I can ask around," he said at length. "I have a few connections sketchy enough that they might be able to find something out."

"What does it matter, _who_?" Fulton complained. "All that matters is that she's here, and she was here before. What happened then, that we can't do again to make it right?" Renfield looked at Seras, who looked at Fulton, who felt the full extent of her irritated sneer and defiantly raised his chin.

"That…" Renfield said, slowly and in a manner suggesting he wasn't entirely fond of the tale," is a story for another day."


	14. Kitten, Part II

"I just… I just don't understand." Fulton lay on his back, hands tucked behind his head as he stared at the ceiling. He couldn't see Seras in the darkness, nor did she make any rustling movements turning over in the bed, but he could hear her breathing and knew by the sound that she was awake. He knew that she was used to staying up well past 6:00 am, and he'd just heard a clock chime half past 5:00, the tinkling sound muffled by the walls.

Renfield had insisted that they stay the night—or day, for that matter—and Fulton hadn't been able to find a valid excuse that didn't sound plain rude. So they'd been promptly ushered around countless corners and endless corridors, more than he could have ever imagined existing in what appeared on the outside to be a modest Victorian manor home. He'd grown quite lost when Renfield finally showed them into a room consisting of two full-sized beds with plump pillows and soft downy quilts embroidered with flower patterns. It was the kind of thing he'd have expected to find in a bed and breakfast, but he didn't utter a word: not even when he opened one of the sideboard drawers and found his own pajamas lying neatly folded within.

He'd given Winston a courtesy call to let him know that they wouldn't be home until tomorrow evening, and then after his nightly routine and her daily one, they were snugly wrapped up in the quilts with the lights out. The curtains over the windows were thick and no light filtered in, leaving the room black as the darkest midnight. Finally taking his glasses off and placing them on the edge of the table that stood between the two beds, he turned his head to look over in the general direction of where Seras was.

"Why would van Helsing… or Harker, for that matter; why would they just bury Mina alive?"

"Dunno," was the blunt reply. "They were a weird lot." Fulton made a face, flipping over beneath the quilt and propping his head up on his hand. He picked at a loose thread, trying to gather his own thoughts. Seras's voice rang out again, surprising him. "Maybe he thought it was a mercy killing. Humans are odd like that sometimes." He ignored the derisive tone from habit, but a moment later the words filtered through and he rewound his thoughts to go over them in more depth.

"Vampires don't kill out of mercy?" he asked.

"I've never heard of it happening." There was a pause. "Well, once I heard about it. Or saw it, rather. But I never considered it a mercy killing, even though that's what they claimed it was." There was an uncomfortable tension in the air, but she didn't elaborate on her memory and it slowly dissipated the longer they both remained quiet.

"Well, I still don't see why they would bury her alive. I think that there were plenty of ways to… mercifully kill her… without going to _that_ extreme."

"Maybe they thought she'd be happier that way."

" _Happier_?!" he grunted, turning to lie on his back once more. The ceiling was a vagueness above him, his eyes picking up pinpricks of shadow that he knew were not really there. He held his hand above him, waving it in the darkness in an effort to see it. He thought he _might_ , but it was also an illusion.

The book Mina would, perhaps, have thought it a fitting way to go. He remembered some of her pleas for a merciful death, should they be unable to kill the Count. But somehow, that seemed utterly in the realm of fiction. No real woman, even a 'proper' one, would willingly ask to be put into a hole to starve.

"Do you think… do you think they might have had to force her in there?" He imagined Willa, less insane and rounder, livelier perhaps. Screaming, begging as four strong men shoved her into a dark hole with stern faces. Tears pouring down her face—were they real, human tears? Or bloody imitation? His heart gave a pitying lurch at the thought of her fear, her panic at the prospect of a long, slow death. If they did, it would be easy to understand how she would have a grudge against those who did that to her. Still, to have that grudge carry through generations….

"They might have." Her voice, unlike his, held no mercy or pity.

"I feel sorry for her, then."

"Sorry?!" He cringed at the angry bite of the word. "You feel _sorry_ for a creature, a monster, who slaughtered your men without a second thought? Who tried to kill you when you were unarmed and vulnerable? Who has tried to destroy your linage in the past, and…" her voice cracked, just enough for him to notice, " _succeeded_ at least once?"

"Yes," he answered back firmly, not backing away from the unspoken challenge in her tone. "I do." She had killed his men, and for that she would not receive atonement from _him_. She would pay for every family she'd broken. But, at the same time, deep within him was a vein of sympathy for the monster, because she _had_ once been a woman. A human. In that lay the principle, and he struggled to voice it to her, realizing that Seras wouldn't understand.

"I feel sorry for her because of what happened to her. The same way I feel sorry for _you_." He didn't know exactly what happened to Seras, but he did know that whatever it was hadn't been fair, or decent, or even deserved. But it _had_ happened, and there was nothing he could do to change it. To him, it didn't matter if she was cynical and filled with hate, or at least dislike, towards humans. She was still Seras, would always _be_ Seras, and he loved her, though he never said it aloud. He loved her because she'd mentored him and cared for him, or at least made sure he was protected and safe.

He felt, rather than saw or heard, her recoil from the admission the same way a cat recoils from an unwanted touch. Then, the full force of her anger made the air in the room feel too hot, filled with malice and unwarranted revulsion.

"I never asked for your pity," she hissed scornfully, and he heard her turn over. He knew instinctively that her back would be facing him, pushing him away and rejecting him. Sighing, he rubbed a hand over his forehead and flipped over, burying his face in his pillow and breathing in the soft scent of sunlight and soap.

* * *

After dozing for the better part of three hours, and tossing and turning for two more, Fulton finally gave up the effort and rose from the comfortable bed. Seras was asleep, motionless and cold as a corpse. Not even her chest rose with breathing; Fulton was grateful that her eyes were closed rather than open.

He placed his pajamas back into the sideboard, unsure of what else to do with them, and redressed in everything but his suit coat. Running a comb through his hair, he splashed some water on his face and threw on his glasses before quietly leaving the room. Faced with the hall, he began to wander aimlessly with the thought that he'd either eventually find something familiar, or he'd find Renfield himself. Either way would do. The corridors were windowless, and so he went about choosing paths and corners based on what his gut told him. He moved without thinking, pretending that he knew exactly where he was going and that there was no need to feel lost or unsure.

Eventually he found himself in a dead end with no doors other than two large oaken ones that stood at the end of the hall. Nodding to himself, he opened the doors to find a library. Books stood from floor to ceiling, stacked up in corners and spread along tables. Some were open, others closed, some with pages sticking everywhere and others with barely any pages at all, bindings threadbare. There were even books stacked on a beautiful grand piano pushed into the corner.

There was a roaring fireplace, large enough he was sure he could spin around inside of it with his arms outstretched and not hit anything at all. There was a large wooden stand near the door, looking much like a vertical shadowbox that stood, rather than hung. He found himself drawn to it, but forced his gaze away. He saw Renfield sitting in an armchair near the fire, legs crossed at the knee and open book held in one hand.

"Come in, come in," Renfield called to him without looking up from the book, free hand waving him over. "Sleep well?"

"Yes," Fulton said, before deciding that it was a lie. "Well enough," he amended, taking a seat on one of the sofas. "Did you?"

"Oh, I hardly sleep. There's no real reason for me to, seeing that I get my energy from other sources." His eyes moved as he finished the page, and then picked up a cloth bookmark from an end table and placed it gently between the pages. Closing it, he put the book on top of a large stack on the opposite side of the armchair before lacing his fingers in his lap and studying his guest.

"When was the last time you slept?" Fulton asked curiously. Renfield's eyes turned towards the ceiling, mouth pursed as he thought.

"Hmm… it must have been about a century or so ago. I took a nice nap in that tree," he explained, pointing to a bay window where the edges of the horse chestnut tree's boughs could be seen. Fulton faltered, trying to piece together an inner map of the house. If the siting room was next door—that couldn't be, because the layout of the room would have caused another door in the corridor he'd come in by.

"This house," he began slowly, not sure of how to ask the question. "It—um, it—"

"It's very nonlinear," Renfield admitted with a wry smile. "Don't concern yourself with trying to figure it out. I stopped trying myself about fifty years ago."

"Ah." Fulton twiddled his thumbs, foot tapping a nervous rhythm on the oriental rug. "Um, Seras was still sleeping."

"It doesn't surprise me, it being early afternoon," Renfield replied cheerfully. "Sleeping vampires are such an oddity, don't you agree?"

"W-what do you mean?"

"Well, in much the same sense that I get my energy from the things I eat, so do they get theirs from the things they _drink_." Fulton watched as the long fingers unlaced, the index of his left rising to scratch his cheek slowly. "So, in retrospect, they really don't need sleep. It's a throwback to their human days, I think."

"Sleeping is more than energy-gain, though," Fulton pointed out, feeling a little sheepish when Renfield stared at him. "Um, your memories get sorted and—" he bit his lip, trying to remember his science lessons from boyhood. "It helps with cell repair and organ function."

"Vampires organs don't function," Renfield stated, not unkindly. "Well, perhaps all except the brain, and in some cases I have my doubts on that as well." He chuckled to himself, rubbing his chin.

"But it's also got to do with memories and mood." Fulton hoped that he didn't sound as though he were grasping at straws. "Sleep improves learning and retention of new things."

"Well, you're not wrong." He seemed more pensive now. Fulton waited, but it was clear that he was so lost in thought that it was pointless to expect anything from him. Instead, he looked at the various titles scattered around his seat: A Tale of Two Cities, Of Mice and Men, A Budding Botanist's Guide to Fungi and Mosses, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Collective Works of Edgar Allen Poe, Drawing Portraits: A Definitive Guide, and Her Pirate Lover took up the smallest stack on the table closest to him.

"Do you collect books?" he asked, wondering why so many different titles would be all together in one spot.

"Not particularly. I keep finding them jammed into corners around this house," Renfield answered with a sigh. "Of course, when one doesn't sleep, it's nice to be able to read. I should be thankful that I have so many different things to learn about. I've even picked up some new hobbies thanks to these books." Fulton thought about the greenhouse he'd seen outside, and the paint-stained apron Renfield had when he'd answered the door.

"Consequentially, I found one that I thought might be of interest to you." He picked up a book from the table and held it with both hands toward him. "You may borrow it, if you like." Fulton took it automatically, turning the thin manuscript over to read the spine. Puppet Wielding: An Art Form Through the Ages. "Puppets?" he muttered, brow wrinkling in confusion. "I don't understand." He had no interest in puppets at all.

"Well, I just thought that reading it might help you get on the right track, so to speak." Renfield blinked innocently, his starry irises magnified tenfold through the lenses. "I particularly like the chapters on marionettes and jointed dolls. Very nice reading." Fulton stared at him uncomprehendingly, and he returned with a bright, toothy grin. Fulton opened the cover to the table of contents. _Marionettes: Chapter 10._ Flipping to the page, nothing jumped out at him, no secret notes falling from the page. It was just… a book on puppets.

"Er… thank you." He looked back up, his eyes meeting Renfield's. For a long time, neither man moved. Then, with the slow, creeping actions of someone trying not to startle a timid creature, Renfield's legs uncrossed and he sat up in the armchair.

"A person's eyes are their most telling feature," he murmured, leaning in as if to study Fulton's face from as close a distance as possible. "Yours hold quite a story." Blinking automatically, Fulton gulped. He remembered what Willa had told him, about his eyes.

"She told me… that is, Wilhelmina…." Fulton cleared his throat and tried again, the words thick in his mouth. "She said my eyes held a lot of pain."

"Is that so?" Renfield's long fingers caught hold of his cheek, turning his face towards the firelight. As close as he was, Fulton could see the sparks of—light? Energy?—in his eyes, the small dip of shadow where skin became lip, the brown eyelashes thinly scattered along the lids. "I see far more than simply pain."

"What do you see?" Why was he so breathless? It was as if the man's presence was sucking the life from his lungs. Was this—was he taking his energy?! No, he was just making him very anxious, that was all.

"I see liaisons." Anxiety forgotten, Fulton bit the inside of his cheek to hold back a snort. _What_?! "Secret liaisons, hope for tomorrow…." Renfield's head tilted to the other side. "Pain, yes, but also… love. Deep love. Trust, broken hearts, melancholy and mourning. Happiness and understanding." As quickly as he'd caught hold, the fingers let him go and Renfield leaned into his seat again. "Human's eyes are so interesting. The past, the present, the future—all of it, and none of it, lie in their eyes." He hummed, a soft intake of breath. "A vampire's eyes hold only the past, the memory of what was. Humans can't afford that luxury. They don't have enough time."

"I don't understand." Renfield frowned, adopting Seras's world-weary expression.

"Humans are like vapors, here for a moment and gone in the next."

"The Bible says as much," Fulton prompted.

"Yes… it does." Renfield's arms crossed and he looked down at his lap. "Anyway," he said in a louder tone, taking a deep breath. "Do keep that book a secret from Seras. I don't want her blaming me for handfeeding you information or anything. I'm sure she'd say that I was only to tell you about Mina and no more, but I do like to give you humans a fighting chance now and again. Keeps my own faith intact, you see." He laughed, but it sounded watery. "Don't worry about bringing it home with you, mind. I'll make sure it gets to you."

Fulton had no doubts that he would.

* * *

"You will come to visit, if you're invited?" Fulton was once again clapped on the back, his hand shaken until he was certain it would fall off. Seras stood to the side, refusing to look at him.

"Most certainly. I don't often get out, but I'm willing to make an exception or two." Renfield was all smiles, his melancholy left in the library. He'd treated them to an expansive breakfast/supper along with polite conversation about a variety of topics before Fulton insisted that they needed to leave. "Besides, I do remember the moths at Hellsing manor being quite the delicacy. Just the right hint of gunpowder…." He turned to Seras. "Dearest girl, please don't be a stranger. Do stop by more than once every few decades."

"I make no promises," Seras replied curtly, but allowed him to embrace her with a tight squeeze. "Behave yourself, Renfield."

"No promises," he purred, holding on one moment more before allowing her freedom. Fulton nodded a last cordial goodbye before following Seras, who had already started down the uneven path leading back to the forest. He turned to raise his hand at the tree line, movement catching his eye.

"Did you know? You've bats in your belfry!" he called loudly as he pointed, knowing that the man would find it amusing.

"Of course!" the answer came, barely audible. "They make a lovely quiche!"

* * *

"He was nice." There was no reply. "You seem pretty familiar with him." Still no answer. "Are you sure you weren't lovers once?" There was an irritated sigh, but she didn't even look his way. They were past the gates now, past the front guard, walking up the long bricked road to the manor, which loomed in the near distance. Picking up the pace, he managed to not only catch up, but stride past her and turn, one hand out. It pressed against her collarbone, the rise of her breast conforming to his hand.

"Seras." He glared at her, mouth set in a frown. Behind the glasses, he could see her eyes narrow in anger. She pushed against his outstretched hand, a warning to back off. He ignored it. "Listen to me. I know you're angry, but—well, when I said that I pitied you, I didn't mean it the way you're taking it, and I think you bloody well know it, too."

"Your point?" Her words hung in the air like mist, bone-chilling.

"My point is that I don't really pity you, per say. You know it, but you don't want to admit it. I'm _sorry_ that whatever happened to you happened. I hate that it did happen at all, really. But I don't _care_ how you feel about it right now." He took a breath and boldly took the glasses from her nose, which wrinkled in anger as her cheeks reddened. He looked deeply into the scarlet depths, searching. They were really the most inhuman thing about her, and yet when he pressed past the mocking, cold glare he found a well of impenetrable sadness lurking just below the surface. It was like looking down at her through the murky darkness of a chasm, unable to find how to pull her back up.

"You've got to stop looking at the past," he whispered, Renfield's words striking a new chord. "Don't care about what my great-grandfather did. Just care about what I do." Something shimmered in the bottom of the chasm, though her face was emotionless. "I would not have you harmed for the world," he admitted softly. There was a breaking so fierce in her eyes that he was surprised not to hear a crack echoing through the air, and for one brief moment he was sure that she was about to cry, her face crumpling and mask slipping. Her eyes slid shut as she composed herself, and when they opened again there was the soft-eyed Seras that he knew lived beneath the tough exterior.

"You remind me so much… of Sir Integra sometimes," she muttered, shaking her head. "You've got too much faith in what I am." Still, a rare, _real_ smile shone through the sadness and she stepped forward as if to hug him. Her hand lifted, tugging at a lock of his hair before rising higher to pat his head like a dog's. He allowed the affectionate gesture, smiling back down at her as his heart swelled, locking the moment away as a warm memory to pull out again when he was older. "You really are a—"

Whatever she was going to call him was lost, along with their moment, as a muffled explosion rang out in the night. Fulton spun on his heel, facing the manor as the blood drained from his face. Smoke, it was smoke? He looked to Seras, who was staring at the manor intently. Then, there was a fierce baying that cut through the air, echoing in the hills around the manor. It sent chills down his spine, rooting him to the spot.

"Fuck," Seras grunted none too eloquently, vanishing in a blink. There was a pushing at the back of his knees and he leapt forward with a yelp, twisting to see the Gytrash familiar Baskerville. It growled at him, pushing him in the direction of the manor. When he still didn't move, it let out a series of barks that resonated in his chest. The multi-eyed hound was… playing Lassie?

"What is it?" he asked, bending to the dog's level. It wasn't very hard, seeing as the creature was massive. "Something's wrong, isn't it?" A loud yapping. "Is it… is it Willa?" he asked in fear. To his surprise, the dog shook itself as if to say no. "No? What is it?" he asked, before feeling foolish. Of course he could just go see himself. It was his house, after all, and he was a Hellsing. Hellsing's didn't shirk from battle or danger… though he was often apt to. _A shortcoming in my nature,_ he sighed, regurgitating words he'd often heard from Seras.

Bracing himself, he sprinted towards the mansion, feet pounding at the bricked walk. He heard the sound of soldiers calling out in fear, and when he rounded the bend he could see them all standing outside, motioning to one another and letting out explicatives.

"What's going on?" he called, trying to sound like he belonged in charge. Most of the men were much older than he, and he couldn't help but feel that sometimes they looked down on him during emergencies like this. It helped that he'd kept a cool head during the skirmish against Willa, leading them out of danger and tending to their wounds, but the fact remained that he was still very young.

"She ordered us out," one captain said.

"Like I was going to hang around," another man added with a shudder. "Those _eyes_."

"It's like a fucking nightmare," a third chattered, hands clutching at his vest as he shook. Fulton wasted no more time on explanations, already getting an idea on what was going on. He shouldered his way through the crowd of soldiers and servants, looking for Winston. When the older man couldn't be found, he hurried towards the front doors with renewed vigor. Baskerville, following obediently at his heels, now ran ahead and leaped through a broken window. _And just after reconstruction!_ Fulton lamented as he saw the outer damage to his home.

"Sir!" He turned to see the men staring at him with something between awe and concern. "Be careful," the captain said, giving him a hearty salute. He nodded and then wiggled past the broken front door.

The foyer was filled with shadows, writhing and curling up the chipped wallpaper and cracked mirrors. Up on the landing, he could see the back of Winston's head. He hurried up the stairs, his eyes on the retreating man.

"Master, just stop it!" Seras called in exasperation, but Fulton could hear the note of real fear beneath her voice. Not for her, though… for Winston? He knew now that he couldn't leave Alucard alone for a full day, not with no supervision. Who else would be causing this? "Master, you're _hurting yourself_!" The fear was for _him_ , then?

He made it to the upper landing, standing behind Winston and clapping a hand to his shoulder. The butler didn't turn, but he leaned into the touch and growled something under his breath. Seras was standing behind Alucard, who was draped in shadow with eyes and gloves both glowing the same shade of red. Fulton gaped at the glowing runes, smelling burned flesh. He really was hurting himself!

"Stay out of this, Police Girl," Alucard snarled, eyes focused solely on the butler. "I'm giving this shallow mockery of a human exactly what he deserves." Fulton frowned at the distinct lack of a real insult, wondering what on earth Winston had done. Shallow mockery? Was that the best he could come up with?

"Alucard, what's going on?" he demanded in a voice much louder than he thought he could manage. Winston stepped to the side, effectively blocking him from the vampire.

"Never mind, sir. Just get back downstairs and out of harm's way. I can handle something this insignificant." Winston was bowed forwards, hands twitching toward the pocket where he kept his pistol. Fulton recognized his 'pre-action' stance and his hand tightened on his shoulder blade.

"No, stop this senseless fighting!" he ordered. "Look at what you've done to my home already! I thought better of you both," he said, eyeing Alucard sternly. "I had thought I was leaving two grown adults here, not two children masquerading as gentlemen." Both men looked briefly at him before turning back to lock eyes. Seras scowled at him. _Some help you are, master._ He scowled back, rightly peeved for once.

 _It was better than what you were doing, shrieking like a damsel in distress._ It must have caught her off guard, for her eyes widened and she actually paused, considering his words. Alucard turned to her, frown widening.

"Police Girl. Here. Now." He pointed to a spot on the carpet. She glowered at him in return, arms crossing. " _Seras_." Something passed in the air between them, heated enough that Fulton was surprised the air didn't begin to shimmer like a summer's haze.

"Why?" She sounded… wounded. "I'm no use to you, am I?" Alucard growled, the shadows quivering in response. Fulton rolled his eyes. What drama they were creating for themselves!

"Seras, get over here," he sighed, jerking his thumb. "I don't care what little spat you two are into. I'm trying to figure out what's going on right _now_." Arms crossed, Seras twisted sideways to avoid touching either man as she obeyed him, leaning against the wall when her body was parallel to his. "Now—"

"See? I told you." Winston's voice was a hiss. "She's not _yours_. She's Master Fulton's, if anyone's." The words, rather than hanging in the air, seemed to fall to the stained carpet.

Fulton felt things moving in slow motion: his head turning towards Seras, only to find her not there anymore. Something large and heavy colliding with him, knocking him over the banister and crushing the breath from his lungs. The weightless feeling of flying through the air. The last image of the three, Winston leaning back with pistol raised, Alucard with his arm outstretched, an expression of shock on his face. Seras between them both, Alucard's arm _through her_ , wet innards clutched in his fist and clinging to his sleeve. Seras's eyes, wide and resigned. Her mouth, opening, a trickle of blood painting her lips. A gurgle that became the whistling of air as his descent began. An agonizing pain, throbbing in his own intestines, breaking through the bond and causing him to cry out. Falling, twisting, trying to find which was up and which down. A crunch, a renewed agony focused in his wrist. Seeing the bone protruding from his skin, not realizing what it meant. Pain, pain in his hand, in his stomach, in his back.

 _S-Seras? Seras!_ No answer. Pain, too much pain. Blackness. Pain that carried through the blackness, until he was simply nothing.

* * *

 **Afterword:** _(telenovela gasp)_ What will become of our hero!? Also, the prize for me winning a contest was a drawing of my OC, and I chose Renny. You can check him out on my Tumblr, heyheyitsjuju.


	15. Guilty

Fulton woke from a deep sleep with the feeling that something was amiss. His entire body ached with a deep throb that seemed to be centered in his left wrist, echoing up and down his spine and resting with heavy fatigue in all his limbs. Raising his hand, he felt it confined by something thick and bulky. Forcing his eyes open, the room seemed to spin, but he could see the mirror image of two thick casts encasing his entire forearm. It hurt to move his arm, so he let it lay back on the bed and tried to decide where he actually was. The air stirred the flimsy curtains, casting shadows over the bed's thin cotton blanket. _Infirmary... this is the infirmary._

The room swayed, the florescent lighting blurring in and out of focus. With great difficulty, he managed to turn his head. His other arm was covered in tape, a tube connecting it to an IV bag. _Opiates?..._ He knew now what was wrong; he'd been the same way after having his tonsils removed at a young age. He couldn't handle pain medicine well. He settled back into the cool pillow, letting his eyes drift closed again. Why was he in the infirmary? Obviously, he could deduce that he'd broken his wrist, and they'd had to sedate him in order to set it straight again. But how did he break his wrist? And why did his back hurt?

 _You fell._ The answer came to him quickly, though not without its own set of questions. He struggled to remember, fighting against the dazed fog that seemed to fill every corner of his mind. He could see the ceiling of the foyer, and feel the wind resistance, even for as short a fall as it must have been, but... if he'd really fallen from the second story, landing on the marble tiles of the foyer should have dashed his brains out and broken his spine. As he thought about it, there was a wet, warm sensation on his palm that startled him. With a tremendous effort, he let his head fall to the side and saw the Gytrash that Winston had been brave enough to beat back on its first foray to the manor. He was sure that, at that time, the great black beast had been more or less the size of a large dog, but now it took a bearish form, looming over him and as tall as a man.

"You..." he croaked, voice hoarse and mouth dry from the pain medicine. He heard a rhythmic thumping that he took to be the animal's tail beating against the medicine cabinet beside the bed, and the shaggy head leaned forward to lick his palm again before it sat back on its haunches with a huff, rattling the contents of the cabinet and shaking the IV stand. He tried to think of the name. "B-Baskerville," he murmured, recalling Seras's words as she'd banished it to the basement. One of Alucard's familiars, she had said. _Docile enough... I think._ Several more eyes opened in the dog's skull and it tilted its head questioningly, floppy ears perking.

"W—" he choked, coughing hard and renewing a pain in his back. "Winston?" he called out, and though it sounded loud to his ears, he couldn't help but think that he was whispering. Baskerville whined and rose to its feet, walking circles in the open space between Fulton's bed and the next, unoccupied one. "Seras?" he tried again, but not even an orderly came to see about him, much less his vampire. "Augh..." He tried to rise into a sitting position, but the room spun so violently that he was forced to rest a moment, muffling another coughing fit. He felt god-awful!

Baskerville came back over, sniffing up and down his body before breathing a hot blast of air into his face, bangs tickling his forehead. It left for a moment and then padded back, something held delicately in its mouth. Dropped into his lap, covered in drool but none the worse for wear, Fulton found it to be his glasses. He wiped them off on the bedspread before putting them on, the action taking far too long in his current condition, and then he took a leap of faith and grabbed two handfuls of the beast's fur. Immediately he let go, shocked by the feeling. It was not the coarse fur that he was expecting, considering the demon dog's appearance. Instead the fur felt, oddly enough, like _shadow_. Fulton, who had of course never felt a shadow in his life, was stunned at the thought. But what else could he use to describe the soft, smooth, silky darkness sliding through his fingertips? Taking another handful, and this time ready for the sensation, he managed to loop his hurt arm over Baskerville's shoulders. The dog lifted him easily, muscles moving beneath his arm and he found himself leaning his full weight against it, but standing on his own two feet.

He closed his eyes against the nauseating sensation of tumbling through space, and when he managed to open them the room was rocking like a ship, but thankfully staying in one place. It took some finesse to unhook the IV from his hand with a cast on his other arm, but between his teeth and the limited movements of his fingers he managed to rip it out. Baskerville licked the blood that spotted the floor.

He took a tentative step forward, feeling his way with the tips of his shoes and focusing his gaze on the door. Baskerville was patient, walking one step for six of his own shuffled movements. Just when he was trying to figure out a way to get them both through the door and still hang onto the dog, the ground seemed to give way beneath him. Gasping, he felt weightlessness envelope him, and all he could do was hang onto the smooth fur for dear life. Dizzy, confused, frightened, the jolt of his feet against the floor of Winston's bedroom caused him to lean over and empty the meager contents of his stomach.

"What are you doing up?" Two hands touched him, two arms lifted him like a baby and sat him promptly on a bedside. At first, he blearily gaped at the still figure of Winston, lying pale and motionless in the bed he was now seated on. He swallowed, wincing at the taste of vomit on his tongue, and then looked up at the figure of Seras leaning over him, her hair a golden halo against the light.

"What happened?" he asked, reaching out with his dominant—bad—hand. The cast bumped against her stomach and he grit his teeth against the deep throb of pain that synced to the beating of his heart.

"You are in no condition to be up," she proclaimed, and he wasn't so drugged up that he didn't see her evading the question. "You're lucky Baskerville broke your fall, and kept _you_ from breaking your spine." She was panicked, he noticed, and for the second time in his memory she was the opposite of calm and in control. She hadn't looked this defeated since Willa had chased them so many months ago. But this time, it wasn't Willa who hunted. He recalled, now, that she had been impaled by a fist, wet and glistening with offal juices. He stared at her suit, wondering at how intact it was. Had he dreamed that, or had she managed to heal? How long had he been out cold?

"Alucard." Her gaze flitted to the door, and he felt as though he were locked in slow-motion as he followed her eyes to see some paper tacked up haphazardly with masking tape. There was writing on the page, but between the medicine and the distance he couldn't read it.

"Be happy your ancestors never threw anything away," she muttered, running a hand through her hair. "It'll keep him away... for now." She watched Baskerville, who was taking a seat as far away from the paper as it could. The number of eyes decreased to two, which narrowed as it growled in a low tone and lay beneath the bed.

"He's... alright?" Winston still hadn't moved, his wan face as pale as the sheets on which he lay.

"He'll be fine... I think." Seras looked unsure. "I mean, I patched him up as best I could, but I left the doctors to work on you."

"Alucard."

"Would you stop saying that name?" she swore quietly, stalking past him to shut the curtains. "I don't want him to _come_."

"He... hurt you." Each word seemed just a little easier than the last to say. Perhaps the pain medicine was wearing off? A stab in his arm seemed to second the idea. Seras didn't answer, but her eyes said all that she needed to. "I'll kill him... myself." Fulton struggled to get back on his feet, but without a prop it was useless.

"He'll kill you," she corrected with a sense of urgency. "He's like a... like an earthquake. Each aftershock just causes more damage, no matter how contained you think it is." Fulton shook his head, hand finding his temple when the action shook him to the core.

" _I_ am the heir... Hellsing... I _control_ him." He waited to hear a cynical comment from her, perhaps pointing out how well that was working for him so far, but it never came.

"I hope so," she said instead, and he balked at how small and defenseless she sounded. He wanted nothing more than to pack her up and send her someplace where he couldn't get her, someplace where she'd be safe and looked after. Someplace where even Alucard wouldn't look for her.

"Renfield," he murmured, staring at a sliver of moonlight on the wallpaper. The name was in his head, on his tongue, before he had the plan formalized.

"What?"

"Renfield," he repeated louder, and like oil to gears he felt his mind awaken, the fog clearing as ideas began to churn slowly, then faster and faster. "Hang on, I'm waking up." He held up a shaky hand as she opened her mouth. "Take Winston and... go to Renfield's house. Tell him what's happening."

"What can he _do_?" Seras protested. "I've never seen him fight, even though he's always talked on as if he could do something impressive. I've never even seen him squash an insect before, other than to eat. If Master comes—"

"He won't. He won't expect you to go there first, when there's other places to go. Am I right?" He'd never asked Seras, but she knew enough about the world that he was nearly certain she had "safe" havens scattered around the globe. Perhaps not safe from an ancient vampire bent on destruction, but safe from other, lesser evils. "He's going to kill Winston, unless I get to him first. I mean it—go."

"But—no. I won't." Seras looked up at the paper over the door. "I'll think of something, but right now I won't put anyone else in danger."

"I'm ordering you to go!" Granted, his voice cracked and he nearly collapsed with another coughing fit, but the runes on her hands glowed in response to his rising anger and she gave him a baleful look before walking over to the bed. "Trust me. I have a plan," he explained, as he watched her gather Winston from the bed. "Just take him to Renfield, tell him what's going on, and make him give Winston the once-over. I'll come as soon as I've handled things here, I remember the way," he assured her.

"Sir," she began, her voice hard, but he shook his head.

"Go. Trust me," he said again. "Have a look in my mind, if it'll make you feel better." It was a risky bluff, but she took the bait and vanished without another compliant. He rested his head against the wall, closing his eyes and listening to the soft breathing of the beast still beneath the bed. For whatever reason, Baskerville had chosen to stay with him instead of going with Seras.

"Come on... think." He knew from previous experience that forcing his mind to come up with ideas was useless. It was easier to simply sit back and let them flow in naturally. But he didn't have the luxury of time; Seras had spoke as if she didn't expect that paper to hold up long against her master. _How dare he... how dare he hurt her_. Whatever was going on between Alucard and Winston was both their faults equally, and of course he would spread the blame between them. But to aim to kill, and then hurt an innocent bystander without a single hint of remorse? Not to mention the fact that _he_ could have been killed as well? That, he could not—would not—stand.

Sighing, he let his body slump against the wall. It would be painful, but the best thing to do at the moment would be to let the meds wear off so that he could face Alucard with some hint of his normal mental prowess. However long the paper lasted, that would be more time on his side, to think up ideas and let the drugs leave his system. And for Winston and Seras, and Renfield as well: if he could buy them more time, it would only be beneficial.

For them, he could wait.


	16. Trouble at the Manor

There was naught to do but plan. And wait. And plan. And wait. Fulton lay still, allowing himself to wake more and finding both pain and weakness as his new roommates. The shadow hound lay beneath him quietly, a stoic sentinel. The trinkets and papers around the room emitted a slight, but comforting, aura.

By the time Alucard showed up, he still didn't have a rock-solid plan. Seras and Winston were safe (for the moment); his main goal was to keep them safe, at whatever cost. He couldn't care less about his own health—he didn't know if Alucard had it in him to kill his master, but if he found out… well, his life had been short, but—not _good_ , per say, but it was fulfilling enough that he wouldn't be too angry about the loss of a mortal coil.

Seras was right: it took less than two shakes to beat down the door, though it was done in such a halfhearted way that Fulton knew the danger on the other side was aware his prey wasn't within. Baskerville moved up to the bed, climbing onto the thin mattress with careful movements. He sat up enough for the animal to curl behind him, resting his lower back on the thick torso as the head hovered expectantly near his elbow and the tail curled between its legs.

"Alucard," he greeted with a croak as the vampire stomped in. He was looking disheveled compared to his regular appearance, and after a moment's study he chalked it up to the lack of outerwear. In just the white shirt, vest, pants and boots, he looked like a plucked chicken. _He's so… thin. Almost sickly._ He could see dark marks on his hands, and as he focused his heart leapt at the melted skin surrounding the raised, blackened runes: a byproduct of ignoring his commanding officer's orders. _I did that… to him?_ He'd seen Seras's runes glow red hot before, but never had he imagined that beneath the gloves, they were burning themselves deeper into her hands. It was enough to make his stomach turn so that, had he not vomited earlier, he might have made a mess on himself now.

"Master," he said coldly, drawing the word out in a soft, cruel question. As if he doubted the youth's authority even more than he had the first time they ever clapped eyes on each other. Baskerville hunkered lower, and Fulton swallowed the dry, thick lump in his throat as best he could. The vampire's expression was colorless, emotionless, and merciless.

"What did you plan on doing to them?" he asked, trying to sound civil as he faced down what might very well be his death.

"To the human, you can very well guess. I hadn't decided how best to punish my _beloved_ servant, though." He inspected the burns on his left hand, as if just now noticing that they were there. "I threw around the overused option of impalement, but there are more inventive methods in the new age that I'm rather keen to try."

"You can't speak of torturing someone and call them beloved in the same breath," Fulton protested quietly. "You shouldn't even say that; you don't love her."

"What does a whelp like you know of love?" he laughed.

"More than you, I'd expect." He shifted painfully. "I love Seras—not in a romantic sense, but as family. I'd never put her through half the madness you've put her through since I let her revive you."

"Hold your tongue, boy." Alucard's voice swung from mirthful to deadly in a matter of seconds. "Unless you plan on telling me where she is, I don't need a lecture from the likes of a child."

"She's where you won't find her. Ever." He'd have to play it by ear. Alucard looked past him to the window, where the curtains had long stilled. The hellhound's ears flattened to his head as he pressed his shadowy frame to the wall. Fulton put his cast on its head, resting it lightly on the thick, silky fur. "Winston, too," he added.

"Where?" Fulton remained silent and he slid up to the bed, nostrils flaring. "I've warned you once before: do not interfere in business that stays between us. She was—is—my servant first and foremost. Mine to mold, to build and even to break, should the need arise."

"From your perspective, perhaps. But from where _I_ sit, she was always my servant first and yours second. Besides, since you are my servant, she's twice over mien to do with as _I_ please. And it pleases me to keep her out of your reach." He felt rather proud of himself for keeping a straight face and an even tone throughout the entire speech.

"She will come and face her punishment like a true vampire." He showed the corner of his fangs as he snarled.

"She's done no wrong. No punishment is needed." He shifted again, his ribs aching profusely. "What is her crime?"

"She chose a pathetic human over her lord and master! Her loyalties lie in the wrong places!"

"She protected her friend!" Fulton raised his voice to match the vampire's own, ignoring the warning flash of rage in the crimson gaze. "Beyond that, I distinctly remember her trying to stop you from destroying yourself by ignoring my orders; orders, that, from the looks of your hands, were incredibly painful to resist. If anyone's to blame, it's on you. This is _your_ fault." The red eyes narrowed, but Fulton was already struggling to a straighter sitting position. "I…wouldn't be… surprised," he gasped, sitting fully straight and feeling every disk in his spine, "if she gave up on you completely!"

" _What_?!" Fulton took two more deep breaths, his uninjured hand over his chest.

"If I were her," he continued, choking on the air, "I'd abandon you to whatever dark alley you chose. From what I've seen of you, you're nothing but a—a wretch! A wretched sociopath who deserves to live alone until the day God sees fit to throw you to Hell, or Sheol, or whatever it is that _you_ believe in. Torment is the only thing _you'll_ have waiting, I'm sure."

He had just enough time to close his mouth before his body screamed in unfiltered agony. It was a blinding torment that made him wonder if _he'd_ just been sent to Hell, having no way of even screaming as his body locked up on him. He was pushed against the wall, the sound of barking echoing in his ears as his nose brushed the ancient vampire's. It wrinkled as the odor of decay, of something putrid and unwashed, flooded it.

"Where. Is. Seras." His spine smacked against the wall with every word, the nerves in overdrive. He coughed, trying to gain breath and barely able to.

"Not. Telling." He managed to rasp. He saw the hand on his collar blister as the rune scars began to glow, felt the heat of an iron, a brand, an open flame, a roaring bonfire just under his chin. He knew that he could say the right words and the vampire would be on the ground, but aside from _physically_ speaking being a bit of a problem, he knew that it would solve nothing. And it would hurt Seras, even if she never said anything about it later on. Not bodily pain, mind, but emotional. For some reason, she still felt something for him, despite… well, everything.

 _Why is it just me he's so defiant towards?!_ He thought back to the journal, read over so many times that he could remember what words were on what page. _None of the other heirs speak of him acting out this way. What happened? Did he go even crazier after being locked away like that?_ He set his jaw, realizing that it didn't matter to him. He wasn't going to end up crushed beneath the vampire's boot. He was on top here, and he'd make sure that it ended up that way, come hell or high water.

"Maybe she's left already," he wheezed, "and I'm just sparing you the pain. Ever think of that?" The wrath and rage fell into something incomprehensible: not just one emotion, but many mingled and stirred together into something completely new written across the normally dispassionate face. Then, another, inwardly searing pain made him think he might be a headless body. Then, he recognized it as a much stronger version of what Seras used to do when he was young and she thought he'd been withholding information. _Damn it, no!_ But it was no use; with surprising efficiency, the vampire had found what he'd wanted and bid a quick retreat, the skin of his hands peeling as the blisters burst.

"That miserable… I'll kill him for sure this time—" Fulton saw the shadows forming in the corner of his eye and grabbed the wrist of the hand holding him even as the vampire let go, yelping as he was yanked forward and holding on for his life, unwilling to be left behind in eternal, physical-less limbo.

* * *

Fulton let go the moment he felt fresh air on his face, falling to the ground and landing on his injured arm. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he still groaned and writhed on the leafy ground before opening his eyes to see Renfield's manor. The moon, a bloody harbinger of death, cast cerise shadows on the forest, on the manor's spires, on the bricked walk.

Stumbling to his feet, he found Baskerville beside him and once more leaned on the animal before trying a jog/walk/stagger towards the front door. His arm throbbed from shoulder to fingertips, and he was sure he'd probably screwed it up for life at this point. Not to mention the deep pain in his muscles, along his ribs, in his calves and very bones. And the headache that was currently blossoming into a proper migraine due to the stress of the situation as a whole. As he lurched zigzagged up the walk, he wished for the millionth time that he'd taken the hint from his cousin and died as a child.

"Renfield!" he coughed, managing to hold his arm, the dog, and his ribs at the same time. "Renfield!" He thought that perhaps if he could warn the man inside, there could be _something—_ a creature, a spell, divine wrath—to stop Alucard in his tracks. He looked up to see the owlish man standing in his own threshold, an antique silver handled, brass tipped broom in both hands. A stern pout was on the man's face, the broom held horizontally to block the front entrance. Fulton looked at the cleaning utensil, which was thin on bristles and tarnished at the top. He paused as Alucard held up a damning finger, pointing at him.

"Move, angel. You had your say decades ago." The expression went from pouting to incredulity.

"I take high offense to that," Renfield replied. Fulton looked at him. _Did he not have a say decades ago?_ "I'm no _angel_." _Of course. Of course it would be that. Why do I even bother wondering_? The headache pounded all the harder.

"You're not taking another one away from me. This one's mine!" If Renfield was threatened, he didn't show it, swinging the broom and twirling it like a monk's staff before striking a surprisingly formidable pose. Alucard took a step back, before the silver could strike him on the nose.

"You're talking crazy, and I'm the looney around here. If anything, you're taking my title away from me!" He twirled the broom in reverse before jabbing the bristles at Alucard's midsection. "Before you do anything or storm anywhere, you ought to calm down a bit."

"Don't play coy, Milo." Renfield rolled his eyes and snorted.

"If you're going to mention human liberties, at least mention the funny ones. I personally prefer you shoving me down the stairs, or perhaps slapping me every time I open a hotel door?" he offered with a hundred-watt smile.

"First Mina, now Seras. I ought to have killed you on the first err, but I had more things to worry about than a mere slip up."

"Again, I must take offense. I didn't _slip up_ , you did! I told you she was acquainted with a Hellsing before you waltzed down the hall and into her room. Now, if you couldn't keep quiet, then that's on you."

"You were playing dead! Of course they'd come to check on her!"

"You said to make a distraction!" Renfield proclaimed, and Fulton was astonished to see the man actually _miffed_. "I was in a cell! What was I to do, pull a top hat from the bricks and perform card tricks for the schizophrenics? I'd already escaped twice, and even _I_ draw the line at threes." The shadows pooling around Alucard made it up to the top stoop and he poked at them with the broom, leaving little dents where the silver touched them.

"Pointless drivel."

"Christ, Alucard," the man swore, shaking his head. "Fine. I'll grant you: I talked Mrs. Harker out of becoming your servant—not like she could have been a vampire anyway," he admitted offhandedly, leaning on the broom. "I'd have given her three months before becoming a Ghoul and that's best case scenario. We both know you wouldn't have wanted to end up like Báthory or, oh, G. Jure Grando. Everyone knows what happened to _them_." Fulton didn't know, but didn't speak up either. It was enough to guess that it wasn't good. "But be that as it may, if you dare to stand before my own home and tell _me_ that I'm trying to drive Kitten—"

"Do not call her that!" Alucard roared, and Renfield let out a strangled eep as he saw the shadows spread up the wall to a clump of ivy beneath several wispy spider webs. He ran pell-mell to the webs, smacking at every shadow he could reach with the broom.

"My garden! My lovely garden!" he squeaked, slapping the broom handle against the wall repeatedly as the shadows played keep away.

"Renfield!" Fulton shouted, seeing a large opaque blob rise from the ground. "Look out!" Renfield turned, looking up with wide, innocent eyes as the blob loomed over him before falling like a mass of jelly, swallowing him whole. " _Renfield!_ " His heart stalled as the blob spread out, leaving nowhere for a man-sized shape to hide before becoming part of the ground again. He was… gone? _Oh God, he's gone! Alucard's killed him!_

"R.M. Renfield: the pathetic nothing who didn't know his own boundaries. She never was yours, not even then. I'd have never given my servant over to—in your own words— 'pure _drek'_." He let out a sadistic chuckle before kicking aside the broom as the shadows spit it out. Fulton watched him walk calmly through the front door, frozen in place. _He… he just…_ His mind refused to wrap around it. Renfield was—no, he couldn't be! Someone like him just couldn't be killed like that!

Could he?

Fulton finally came to his senses, aware of Baskerville gently mouthing his uninjured arm, tugging him. He followed blindly, still staring at the spot where the man had last been until they turned the corner and it was lost behind the faded, brambly brick façade. Baskerville walked him to the backyard, as lush and yet drab as the front, past the tree—of course, nowhere near a window that would offer a view like one could find inside—and all the way to the back corner of the lot. A tiny, decrepit structure stood, overrun with vines. The door stood partly open, the darkness within less than inviting. Fulton turned back, hearing a crash echoing from inside the manor, but the hellhound held his arm gently and tried to take him closer to the—greenhouse, it was, judging by the broken pottery and leaking bags of ancient soil nearly eaten over with the vines.

 _Seras, stay hidden._ He took one last look at the manor. _As soon as I can, I'm coming for you._

* * *

The door creaked slowly as Fulton opened it, peering just inside. What was it that Baskerville wanted him to see? He stepped in, looking over the dark, dingy rows of overgrown plants that looked nothing like normal ones. He peered inside a seemingly empty, deep planter and immediately backed away as whatever inside let out a frightful rattling hiss.

"What the hell?" he whispered, holding his limbs as close to his torso as he could. Something snaked around his ankle and he jumped, dancing with expressions of pain as he tried to decide between hopping on one of the tables and high-tailing it out of the greenhouse altogether. A rat squeaked in the corner, red eyes glowing as it stood on its hind legs and glared at him. He stared frightfully back, only to shiver as he walked backwards into a spider web. He swung his good arm at it, neck crawling with imagined spiders running their pointy little legs over his skin.

Behind him, something decidedly large and bulky fell sideways with a clattering of metal and clay. He froze, turning his head to see a large supply closet near the back of the greenhouse. He knew that his eyes had to be as large as saucers—no, as orbiting moons. _Nope. Mm-mm. No way. Not even for Seras._

He began a forward motion to leave the greenhouse, but Baskerville's body blocked the door and he actually growled. Fulton stopped, scowling and doing a one-handed 'get lost!' motion. Baskerville stared balefully back, tail hanging low and ears still flat and drooping. In the light trickling in from outside, he could see the shadowy hackles raised.

"What's wrong with you, stupid mutt!?" he hissed, before twitching as something ran over his foot. "Let me out!" The dog didn't move, and the whatever-it-was in the supply closet moved again. He turned, rather having the dog at his back to this unknown, possibly Lovecraftian botanical abomination. Gulping, he went against his better judgment and moved carefully towards the closet door. _Perhaps it's a good Lovecraftian abomination and will help me against Alucard?_

The shifting movements stopped when he approached the door, and he wondered if whatever was inside could see the shadow of his shoes. Baskerville, coming out of the darkness to his side, nudged at the door with his nose. He thought about trying to race the dog for the greenhouse door, but in his current state he knew he wouldn't make it. He rattled the rusted doorknob, trying to get it open. It rattled back, and he leapt back from the door as though it had burst into flame. _Jesus Christ!_ He moved to the far side of the door, reaching over as far as he could and giving the knob one hard turn and a yank.

It came off in his hands and he tumbled into a set of wooden shelves, which collapsed immediately under his weight. He laid silently on the vine-covered ground, surrounded by rat feces, moldy dirt, covered in plants and rotten wood, in pain from head to toe. _Life sure doesn't get any better than this, does it?_ Without a knob to hold it, the door swung open and promptly fell from the bottom hinge, the top barely hanging on.

"My dear boy, are you alright?" The thin figure had a pot over his head and was covered in black dust from head to toe, but there was no mistaking that accent.

"Renfield?!" He managed to lift a hand and was promptly pulled to his feet. "You—you're not dead?" He gawked at the man, who smiled and lifted enough of the flowerpot to show his glasses hanging askew, barely covering the silvery irises that shone with a light of their own. He moved his head and Fulton suppressed a shudder as they reflected in the dark like an animal's. Baskerville let out a low whine and turned between them, headed for the greenhouse door.

"Of course I'm alive," the man chuckled. "It takes more than a little gloop to beat someone like me. I just did a little vanishing trick, only I forgot a step. Thankfully I just went as far as the greenhouse." His laughter turned sheepish. "I've went as far as Berwick before."

"Berwick? I—" Another, louder crash rattled the plants still upright on their shelves.

"What's he doing, taking down my walls?" Renfield griped, crossing his arms. Fulton felt his eyes drawn to the flowerpot and considered reaching up to knock it off the man's head, but he moved forward before his fingers could twitch. "Come, m'boy, we better go and stop him."

"Stop him? We couldn't stop him before! He'll do worse to you than just putting you in a shadow," he protested weakly, following. What else could he do?

"Oh, it's just a matter of calming him down enough to put some reason into him. I think Seras might be the best one to do that—she always was, or at least the best _I_ ever saw—but if she's on the lam then we'll just have to do." He kicked at a vine, which seemed to move on its own and block his path. He began to look for another way around, leaping nimbly over a wooden table.

"But—" Renfield turned, his face thrown into shadow by the light of the open door.

"Come, come! No time for chatter, young Hellsing! If Alucard gets to her before we get to him, then he may do something we'll all regret! I'd rather not have the whole Enoch blow-up looking more like a birthday party, if you catch my meaning."

"Enoch, Enoch, Enoch." Fulton stood his ground in the middle of the greenhouse, ignoring the vine spiraling up his pants leg. "Everyone talks about him, but no one will tell me what he did that was so terrible!" He smacked irritably at the vine, which promptly fell away and curled just as quickly up Renfield's legs. The man avoided a chokehold and spent a moment grappling with the sneaky tendrils before flicking a leaf with his finger and forcing it to coil in on itself. It jumped back, pride injured, and slunk into a dark corner.

"You know, it's really startling how human genes play effects on generations." Renfield dusted himself off, putting the flowerpot at an angle on his crown and brushing stray soil from his forehead. "You look almost _exactly_ like Enoch, when he was alive. Younger, perhaps, but still: you might have been a time traveler, and I'd never have known the difference."

"I—I do?" He searched his memories, trying to remember if that little tidbit of information had ever passed his way. He didn't think so. "Really?"

"Yes. It was an odd name for the time, but… honestly; his mother's name was no less odd so there you have it." He looked at him again. "Your name is up there in the strange category as well."

"It was my grandfather's name!" he argued defensively. "A noble name!"

"Yes, well. Enoch was taken from the Bible. Surely even you know that much." Fulton blushed.

"Enoch… walked with God." Renfield smiled.

"Yes, but another Enoch, the son of Cain." He waved Baskerville out of the greenhouse before picking up some of Fulton's mess. "Sad to say that _your_ Enoch was the latter, rather than the former. What can be said of you?" he mused, taking the last rotten shelf from the wall and propping it against the corner.

"I—I don't—"

"Things ended badly. Poor, dear Abigail." He turned away, and Fulton blinked twice as something akin to comprehension washed over him. Not an answer, but a piece in the puzzle. Denying information and giving it at the same time. _I'm the gray area of the universe._

"But it's not my story to tell, so I can't and I won't."

"I see," Fulton replied slowly, fingering his cast. Renfield looked down and pointed to it.

"Alucard?"

"Um… by proxy." He shifted. "But what if Alucard does the… bad thing? What then? Are we talking about end of the world, or destruction of England, or—"

"Oh, no no! Much worse!"

"Much… worse?"

" _Very_ much worse."

"Really bad?"

"Really, really bad."

"W-what?!" Renfield leaned in.

"The loss of a soul. And possibly, my job."

"I—would you _be serious_!?" Renfield blinked.

"I'm quite serious. I don't want to be out of a job. Unemployment after so many millennia? It wouldn't suit me in the slightest." The man scratched his ear. "I've got something for that wrist, when we get into the house. And we need to hurry it up: despite everything, he needs Seras. I think he realized that when he lost her the first time, but he's forgotten since then."

"Lost her?"

"Mmm… not my story!" He clapped his hands. "Alright! Enough standing around. You, dog: go find my broom." The shadow hound leaped over the threshold and vanished in a puff of mist. "You, human lad: let's go find my vampiress."

* * *

 **Afterword** : Again, it's a race against time. But this time, we all know who'll get there first… all who read the original, that is. But it's still fun to take the journey, right? Right? I hope I'm right.

This chapter was originally released in 2013. What a journey it has been! _(and the end is not in sight / but the stars are out tonight, and they're bound to guide my way)_


	17. The Picture

"Re—Renfield, _wait_!" It was hard to keep up with a charging madman, even down one straight hallway. It didn't help that Renfield leapt clean from his shoes, sliding to a stop and rearing back to kick down a single door with wild eyes. _Alucard, he's there, he's—not Alucard?!_

"Jesus!" Standing with one hand reaching for the doorknob, his brown hair frazzled at the edges but otherwise no worse for wear, was the Hellsing Organization's resident butler.

"Winston!" Fulton was unable to hold in his glee at seeing the man conscious. "You're alright!"

"I think," the butler gasped, handing falling from midair only to rise and clutch at his heart. "I'm getting too old for these sorts of surprises!"

"You wouldn't be surprised if you'd been in bed, resting, like I ordered." Renfield pursed his lips. "But I'm glad to see you're well enough to take charge of your own health again, human." Winston adjusted his cuffs and avoided eye contact, a barely-sheepish smile flitting across the corners of his mouth.

"Winston…." Fulton swallowed, taking a deep breath. "Are you out of your mind?!" The words he'd wanted to ask for what seemed like years, rather than hours, spilled out of him in a rush. "Taking on someone like Alucard when I wasn't there? When _Seras_ wasn't there? It couldn't have waited? It couldn't have been avoided? I need you!" The minute the words were out, as childish and selfish as they sounded, he knew that they rang of honesty. Winston looked up, the corners of his eyes crinkling in sympathetic guilt. "I mean, the organization needs you here. Seras and I need you… erm…." He looked away, scratching the back of his head. Renfield grinned, one brow arching high above the round lenses of his spectacles.

"I apologize, Sir." Winston bowed, breaking the awkward tension with a formal, businesslike gesture. "I should have held my tongue and not added to the chaos. The damage to the house is my fault. Act accordingly; I deserve proper consequences." Fulton crossed his arms, drawing himself to full height and clearing his throat.

"Ah, uhm, yes! Yes, you do. And you'll get them in time, but so will Alucard. I won't have any of my men—er—" He looked around for Seras, only to remember that she wasn't there to silently prompt him. "—acting so childishly out of turn. It's a right load of tosh." That sounded more like Ms. Walsh than a proper leader, but again Seras wasn't around to mentally berate him for it and he was spared.

"Lovely reunion, brilliant chat-chat-chatting, but we should be getting on." Renfield held the door open, ushering Winston through before closing it with a soft _snick_. "You can come along if you're up to it, old boy, but the longer we let Kitten jump around the worse off everything's going to be."

"Kitten?" Winston looked headlong at Fulton, mouth thinning into a white line. "And who, may I ask, would that be?"

"Seras. She's cattish enough, right?" Fulton answered, not missing a blink and somehow managing to keep his face straight, even when Winston's cheeks blushed an angry pink-red. "Renfield's known her longer than you and I put together—let him call her as he likes." Winston opened his mouth, but one look from his employer had him closing it again with a frown. He took in a breath through his nose, choosing a more prudent source of conversation.

"And _why_ , pray tell, will she be worse off? What's happening? I can't remember anything for having my head knocked around by that psychopath."

"Sociopath!" Renfield called jovially over his shoulder, already leading the way back down the hall. Fulton motioned for Winston to follow, staring at the shoes somehow back on the madman's feet. He tried to think of a way to explain that wouldn't have Winston charging nobly up the stairs for Seras, and consequentially being thrown down them again by a furious Alucard.

"Well… Alucard. And Seras. But mostly Alucard. With a bit of Seras." He shrugged his shoulders, making weighing motions with his hands. "Equal blame, sort of? But leaning more towards Alucard. Also, Renfield was thrown inside his own greenhouse and I had my wrist broken, but that's been taken care of." He shook back his sleeve and twisted his wrist to show its uninjured state.

"Sir?" Winston put a hand to his temple. "This may not be the best time, but I think we should start negotiating my early retirement."

"You're locked in contract for life," Fulton pointed out. Winston raised his eyes to the ceiling.

"Then perhaps I should send you a memo about my up and coming suicide."

* * *

"Willa!" Winston ducked, looking around quickly, but Fulton pointed to the wall. They were cutting through the portrait gallery again, this time looking for a 'side door' that Renfield insisted would take them to Seras. Scanning the walls again, Fulton had narrowed in on a picture he hadn't seen the first go-through.

"Is it?" Winston squinted at the daguerreotype, mouth pursed. "By George, it is!" The same face, the same dark hair, cute lips, enchanting features; it was all there, but the wild look was gone from her eyes, the twist of malice from her sweet mouth. Fulton stared at it even after Winston moved on to keep up with Renfield.

"You must be Wilhelmina, mustn't you?" Just like with Seras, he ran the pads of his fingers carefully over the porcelain face behind the glass. "What happened to you? What _changed_ you?" The woman didn't answer, her eyes staring beyond Fulton's face as she smiled eternally at something—someone—he would never see.

" _Honestly_ , say words like a proper man!" There was a loud roar that shook the pictures on the wall, nearly knocking Fulton off his feet. He looked around, realized how far behind he was, and sprinted along the hall to the open door that was virtually impossible to distinguish from the paneling to either side of it, save a framed photograph of a door stuck squarely in its middle. _Of course it would be, wouldn't it?_ he thought, and then, _God help me if I'm starting to see the method to the madness_.

The door let to a series of steeper stairs, like a servant's staircase, and he was forced to duck and pick up his feet simultaneously while running as fast as he could towards the landing.

He arrived at the top to see an attic of sorts, maze-like in its jumble of old furniture, boxes, and sheet-covered somethings. It reminded him a little too much of the attic he found Seras in, a chill creeping down his spine that had nothing to do with the shadows climbing the walls or the tall man in the center of the room, holding Renfield off the floor by his suspenders.

Renfield, on his part, seemed unaffected by the manhandling and was more concerned with picking a piece of lint off Alucard's sleeve, his eyes large and innocent.

"I tell you, I have no _clue_ where she is! Women, eh? Running off here and there, spending money, hiding in old houses, leaving nary a note in their wake except bills of sale. Ha-ha! Quite a… hmm, not funny?" He tilted his head, chin pressed against his collarbone as he looked the vampire over. "She's not going out of the house, I'm almost certain of that. Laugh a little, lighten up!" He tugged slightly at the hands, if only to stop them stretching out the fabric of his suspenders.

"Alucard? Alucard!" Fulton put on his 'brave face', hands held out placatingly as he stepped towards the infuriated man. Alucard turned his head and sneered, eyes discs of blood-red light in the dim glow of the room. "Listen to me; we can talk this over. Just _put_ _Renfield down_." He spoke slowly and concisely, as though Alucard had a loaded gun.

"Now is not the time for talking, my master." He was breathless with violent glee.

"It is if you want Seras." Instantly Renfield was dropped, landing on his rear with a slightly surprised expression, glasses going crooked.

"You know where she is." His voice went flat in a millisecond. Fulton gulped, lying through his teeth.

"Of course." _She's in the house; that's not a lie, is it?_ "But she told me that she only wants to talk. She won't even stay in the same room as you if you keep making a scene."

"That sounds like her." Alucard's sadistic expression didn't change, but his hair fell a centimeter or two, the shadows retreating further back to their proper corners. "She never did want to fight like a proper vampire." Fulton held up a finger, wagging it sternly.

"I'll take you to her, but you have to promise not to punish her, or—or strike her, or do anything to her other than _talk_. And you have to listen to what she has to say." He saw the anger creeping back into the corners of Alucard's mouth. "Otherwise, no deal. I won't have you going to spare when you've no right to." He stood straight while the narrowed red gaze looked him over shrewdly, trying to ignore the sweat dripping down his neck.

"Take me to her." Renfield grinned, clambering to his feet with a jaunty whistle as he brushed past Fulton and made for the stairs.

"Alright. Take a breath, and follow me. Oh!" he said quickly, when Alucard began to follow. "No touching Winston. At all. Don't even _look_ in his direction if you get the urge to kill him, or I'll make you think being locked up in a box for decades was a friendly holiday." It was a weak threat and the leer he got in answer made him groan inwardly, but when they descended Alucard passed by the butler as though he wasn't there. Fulton breathed a quiet sigh, shaking his head firmly when Winston glared after the vampire.

"What are we doing?" Winston whispered, falling into step behind Fulton.

"Finding Seras, but we already know where she is." Fulton winked before cupping his hands around his mouth, calling out in a random direction. "Seras!? Seras, come out! It's okay now, your orders have changed!" Winston caught on quickly enough.

"Miss Seras! Master Fulton wishes to see you!" he called in the other direction, copying his employer's stance. "Mutt—er, Baskerville!" he whistled sharply. "Here, boy!"

" _Alle, alle, auch sind frei_!" Renfield sang, turning in a slow circle with keen eyes darting every direction.

"Alle, alle—what?" Fulton sighed, wondering for the umpteenth time about the eccentric man's sanity.

"Ollie, ollie, oxen-free!" Winston crowed in his ear, picking up the term.

"No, I'm sure _I'm_ the one pronouncing it properly," Renfield advised, moving towards the kitchen. Alucard crossed his arms, looking down his nose at his master. Renfield stopped beside him, let out a string of German in a perfect accent, and ducked with a laugh when Alucard swiped for him, nails thick and black like claws.

"Don't aggravate him." They all turned to see Seras leaning against the open door, her tight mouth and weary eyes the only signs of her exhaustion. She eyed Alucard sharply before dismissing him with a flick of the head, turning to Fulton instead. "Master, your hand?" Fulton showed her its full movement. "Good. Thank you, Renfield."

"I live to serve, mademoiselle." Renfield bowed. Fulton rolled his eyes, feeling Seras prodding his mind for entry. He let her in, showing her the events of the proceeding hours: his frantic planning, the greenhouse, Renfield's burning medicaments, the portrait gallery, the attic, Fulton's lie to Alucard, the offer to talk.

"Well? Are you up for talking?" she asked, not missing a beat. "Or do you feel the need to stomp about the attic some more, Master?"

"Watch that tongue of yours before I cut it out," Alucard growled. Fulton made to speak, but at the same time he realized that it lacked the heat of Alucard's _real_ threats.

"Try it and see if I don't bite your fingers off." Seras turned, pointing back up the stairs. "Come on." Fulton watched them go, wondering at such an odd, dysfunctional relationship.

"Like a married couple," Renfield sighed, ignoring the pointed look thrown his way by Winston.

* * *

"Rigor Mortis."

"Really Muddy."

"Righteous Monster."

"Rumpelstiltskin me all you like." Renfield threw his hands in the air. "But you won't get the answer out of _me_."

"R.M. has to stand for _something_." Fulton stirred a spoonful of honey into his tea before taking a sip, the warm liquid soothing his frayed nerves. He and Winston had been invited to sit at the kitschy kitchen table, Renfield supplying his 'guests' with tea while they awaited Seras and Alucard. Three whole hours had passed, but they'd passed peacefully, without roaring, or shaking, or anything that suggested a fight going on overhead. And so they were contented to wait.

Finally, Seras came through the archway with Alucard behind, both of them dressed and looking as normal as ever, as though nothing had happened. Alucard stopped before Fulton's chair, bowing onto one knee with a leer.

"Master, I _truly_ regret my earlier actions," he said with a smirk, his dancing eyes telling Fulton more than he needed to know. He looked over Alucard's head at Seras, who shrugged. _That's the best you'll get. You ought to know he's not repentant._

 _But are_ _ **you**_ _alright with that?_ He thought Seras might look perturbed, or even saddened, but she just looked… tired.

 _What does it matter to me? I wasn't going to die, anyway._

 _Back to your usual bitter self, I see_. He sighed, looking down at Alucard before letting his true frustration and anger shine through for a brief moment.

"You are in no position to laugh at me, vampire." He was surprised by the low, dark tone of his own voice. "I'm not amused."

"Of course not." Alucard stood, pulling his tinted glasses from one pocket and twirling them between his long fingers. "Not many Hellsings are, after dealing with someone like me."

"I'm considering your punishment, but don't think you'll get off scot-free just because I haven't settled on a proper consequence." He bowed mockingly again, this time from the shoulders. Renfield hid a smile behind his hand. Seras looked away. "As a little precursor, I'd like you to formally apologize to my butler—if for no other fact than that he is _my_ butler." Alucard's mouth settled into a thin line. "Winston?"

"Sir?"

"I think it's only fair that, since you're to share the blame, you should be made to apologize as well." He nodded towards Alucard. "What do you have to say?"

"Quite a bit," he answered contritely. "But I suppose… as my master commands." He gave a curt dip in Alucard's direction. "Some things that were said shouldn't have been said." He cleared his throat. "No matter how they were meant."

"A man of my _age_ shouldn't act so rashly," Alucard said in answer, with another sidelong leer towards Seras, who scowled. Fulton nodded, sticking his hands in his pockets.

"True, true. Oh, and Alucard?" The vampire looked up with a cold sneer, only to jerk back as in one smooth movement, Fulton pulled a handgun from his pocket and shot his servant point-blank in the forehead. Renfield sputtered, choking on his tea; Seras stepped to the side, nostrils flaring at the gore splattered along her left boot.

"Sorry," Fulton said blandly. "Just wanted to make sure he had some brains in there after all."

* * *

 _Five a.m. Five a.m. Five a.m. Five-oh-one._

Fulton stared at the ceiling, his eyes unable to close. Whatever junk Renfield had given him, it left him refreshed. _Too_ refreshed. _What does a bloke have to do to get some decent sleep around here?_ He thought of asking Seras to… hypnotize him, or something, but passed it off after only a moment's hesitation. He didn't to bother her, considering the things she'd already went through this evening.

"Shower," he muttered, throwing back the sheets and climbing to his feet. "A shower and perhaps an early start to the day." He dragged his socked feet across the room, earning himself a static shock on the door to the bathroom. He turned the faucet as hot as he could stand, steam pouring from the stall as he stripped out of his nightclothes.

 _Why me? Why was I born into this sort of family? Why couldn't I have been a Smith, or a Jones, or a Tanner? Someone of little value in higher vampire society?_ He lathered his hair, tipping his head back and sputtering when the water went up his nose, shampoo burning the back of his throat. _My luck, I suppose._

He wasn't any sleepier, even with the warm water's embrace. At the risk of another static shock, he dragged himself all the way to his office, where the work of the past few months was scattered across every available surface of his desk. Sitting down in his father's old chair, he placed both feet firmly on the ground, a touch of nostalgia gracing him. He'd once been too small to do that, back when he'd first met Seras. _Probably should have stayed in the attic, that one._ She'd brought him a lot of trouble… but also a lot of excitement. Adventure. Family. Without Seras, he would have never met Winston, or even Renfield. Hell, he would have probably died by his cousin's hand.

 _Maybe my family name is worth it, just for meeting her._ He quickly quieted the thought before she could hear and scold him for the sentiment, absentmindedly brushing aside some of the folders. They teetered on the edge of the desk before falling, papers and snippets sliding everywhere as the two manila sides spilled their contents.

"Oh, for _fuck's_ sake," he grumbled, still in 'Seras' mode, as he pulled himself back to his feet. "Of all the things." He kicked at an old post-war document, growled when it fluttered even further out of reach, and then bent onto one knee to begin picking up the pieces. Now he had to sort them back into their proper folders as well. _Just my luck, indeed._ He honed in on wallet sized photographs, knowing they were of the old Vatican workers, most of who died in the Zeppelin Incident. Those would be easiest to sort.

He picked up person after person, stopping here and there to admire different features: a woman's vibrant red curls, another's drawn face, a man's sparse mustache, another smiling where all others frowned. He found the last one vertically against a wall, the wind blowing it facedown. Picking it up and turning it over, he found the man Seras had seemed to know, the scruffy one with the large scar. She hadn't _said_ that she'd known him, but he remembered her wrinkled nose, her burning eyes in the light of the April moon.

He turned the picture to the back, where in small black typeface—just like every other photograph in his hand—there was a small set of figures. Date, time, a code that meant little to him, and at the very end a name.

"Alexander Anderson." He hummed under his breath, turning the photo back around to face him. "Well, back in the folder you go." But he hesitated, something in the back of his mind nagging him in a way he couldn't place. He stared longer at the picture. Something about the stoic man in the image seemed so familiar, as if he'd seen him before. But aside from a passing glance to the photograph itself… he'd never seen anyone quite so marred in his life.

Chalking it up to a wayward memory of Seras's—those things happened, sometimes—he looked up from the photograph to see another, this one hanging in its proper place on the wall. It was him and Seras, all those years ago when he was a whiny brat of a kid and she… well, she was herself. He looked at it fondly, until something clicked. And clicked, and clicked, a gear whirring with no chain to stop it, mindless energy in his brain. The manila folder fell from his loose fingers, Vatican heads once again spilling in every direction as his focus shifted from the picture itself to the glass, to his _reflection_ in the glass, his father's long nose, his mother's slender brow… and sitting beneath it, two very striking, very _green_ eyes.

The picture crumpled in his hand.

He doubted. Thought. Doubted some more. Paced his office. Walked into the hall, stared in a mirror, then down at the wrinkled slip of embossed paper. He held the photograph up to his glasses, squinting. He shook his head. He went back to the photograph on the wall, held the headshot up there as well. Paled. Doubted again, and decided to ask the one person who might know, bother-be-damned.

"Seras, come here." He felt the hair on his neck raise as her shadows flared into the room from the hallway. She stepped in, already dressed for bedtime. It wasn't the first time he'd seen her without the suit, but it was certainly a shock every time he looked at the plain, _normal_ looking pajamas.

"Yes?" she sighed, clearly annoyed at being called upstairs after the sun had peeked over the heads of the fir trees in the forest. He stood across the desk from her, and then smoothed the photograph out so that it faced her, tapping it with the pad of his finger.

"My eyes, Seras. He has my eyes." She stared down at it, and for a long moment he was afraid she didn't understand his meaning. Then, when her head remained bowed, he took a chance. "Why didn't you tell me?" She looked up, all genuine bafflement.

"It's not my place to say." They squared off, and then she shifted her gaze to the quiet world outside the windows. "She never said. I assumed, but I wasn't—I wouldn't have asked her. I knew her too well to dishonor her that way."

"Is this why Alucard hates me?" He had skimmed over the vampire's numerous scuffles with Vatican agents, and now recalled an 'Anderson' being thrown in more than once. Seras looked surprised, but shook her head.

"No, I don't think so," she answered honestly. "Alucard respected Father Anderson." Her usage of his proper title didn't pass his notice. _Looks like he wasn't the only one to have respect, whether you liked him or not._ "I think he guessed too, but… if he ever thought it as less than worthy, he never said anything." She scratched at her chin. "You'll have to ask him yourself."

"I'll pass." He looked down at the photograph. "Celibacy," he muttered.

"The world was on fire." He looked back up at her, remembering the blazing mural on Renfield's ceiling. "I don't think vows matter much at the end of days."

"Wouldn't they matter _then_ , more than ever?" Seras blinked at him before sighing.

"When I was your age, I would have said the same thing. But the older I get, the more I just… I just don't know." She crossed her arms. "Her son had your eyes, too. And I would bet that most Hellsings since then have. It was bred in."

"Well. So Alucard lost to a priest." He sat down, feeling something funny about the whole idea and wondering if he was heading down the road to hysterics.

"Alucard didn't feel that way for her." Seras sat as well, picking at her gloves. "Or at least, I don't _think_ he felt that way for her. I certainly don't feel that way for you."

"I should hope not!"

"Did she have feelings for him? Vampires can't—well—"

"Do you have feelings for me?"

"Lord, no!" They were silent. "Renfield—everyone really—says I look like her son. Enoch, right?"

"Yes. And you do, strikingly so." She tilted her head. "If I believed in reincarnation, I'd say you were about as close as it can be. The eyes, the hair, the build… you're nothing like him mentally, though. You're different." She said it as though it were a good thing, so he took it as a compliment.

"Did… did he care for her?"

"How would I know?" Seras shifted her weight to her other foot, expression falling flat. "Stop trying to get some romance out of this. Things just happen, sometimes." He stared at her silently, green eyes and red. She sighed. "He respected her. That probably meant more to her than anything else they might have felt."

"From what I hear, it was hard _not_ to respect her."

"Yes. She was—" Seras's brow furrowed and smoothed as she thought. "She was a very commendable woman."

"You miss her."

"I do." She gave a little chuckle that lacked its usual sharp cruelness.

"You never forget your first Hellsing."


End file.
